


Ragnarok

by retrollama



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Apocalypse, Canon-Typical Violence, Cats, Curses, Frost Giants - Freeform, Fury's a dick, Gen, I actually like Kathy, I'm going to stop now, Magic, Marvel Cinematic Universe - Freeform, Matron, Orphan - Freeform, Post-Avengers, Thieving Crews, Thor is clueless, Tony reads twilight, War, mcu - Freeform, original backstory, post-Amazing Spiderman, well 'cat' specifically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retrollama/pseuds/retrollama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 6 months since the Incident and 3 since the Lizard attacked. Tony has taken a sudden interest in Spiderman since his debut performance atop Oscorp's main building but when Thor returns to warn them of the coming apocalypse, it's more than just curiosity that propels the team to recruit this new hero. The more they try, the more it becomes apparent; they really need to find their missing Captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First off, Hi! This is my first story on ao3 so I hope you enjoy it. I published this on fanfiction.net originally but I decided to move over here as well. 
> 
> Just some notes before you start;  
> I am completely oblivious when it comes to anything outside MCU and I'm too lazy to google so all the backstories for the characters have been made up on the spot while I had nothing better to do on a Saturday.  
> Something that's important to note when you start this is that, while I'm sticking the MCU, I've also incorporated the original Norse mythology in here in terms of Ragnarok (the apocalypse) and the events leading up to it. Loki's punishment was also taken straight from the mythology as was the addition of his mother, Farbauti (actually supposed to be his father but whatever Marvel you can mess with genders if you like). 
> 
> It starts off a bit slow (bad) but it does pick up after the first chapter or two. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and if you have any questions just ask!
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve sat at the bar, his hand wrapped around a shot glass filled with a foul tasting amber liquid that Stark had picked out for them. Howard had caught him sitting silently in a corner of the camp they were currently stationed at. He’d told him to ‘quit mopping about and come for a walk’. The walk had turned into lunch and lunch had turned into drinks and here they were.

“You know what, Cap?” Stark slurred from his spot next to him. He’d had more than a few too many but kept the drinks coming. Steve had told him that alcohol had no effect on him and Stark suggested they put that theory to the test.  Of course, Steve could drink him under the table but he was enjoying himself too much to tell him that. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend.”

“Really?” Steve asked, genuinely shocked at the statement.

“Yeah, course you are! We’ve seen each other more than once without you telling me to get nicked.”

Steve chuckled and said “But why? I mean you’re rich, you’re smart-“

“That! Right there!” Stark interrupted, pointing a finger in the Captain’s face. “Smart. People fear intelligence. That’s why.” Howard threw back the shot and Steve did the same.

“Stark, I don’t understand what you’re saying half the time,” Steve didn’t say ‘and the other half is about woman and sex’.

“Exactly! And you’re still here! That’s why you’re my friend.” Howard gave a drunken smile and raised his newly filled glass. “To best and only friends!”

“To best and only friends,” Steve mimicked.

Howard looked at him hard, leaning in and squinting. “You’re not even a little drunk, are you?” Steve laughed, openly and fully for the first time in what felt like forever. “Oh well!” Stark threw back the shot and Steve did the same. Howard toppled backwards off the stool and Steve laughed again. _To best and only friends,_ he thought, _to best and only friends._

 

**~AVENGERS~**

 

Tony sat by the window of his house staring out into the deserted streets through a curtain of rain. His dad was out which meant that it was his job to look after the house. It was his birthday and dad had promised he’d be home. He promised. Tony was turning ten today. He’d told his mum he didn’t want a party because he wanted to spend the day with dad. Tony knew exactly where he was. He was at the lab talking to the Captain. Ever since he’d found him, he spent all of his spare time with him. Talking to him, trying to find a way to bring him back, telling him about a woman called Peggy. Tony had been jealous at first but then his dad told him about the Captain. Captain America, a superhero, dad’s only friend. Besides Tony, of course.  And that made it okay because his dad had a friend. Tony knew that his dad wasn’t good at making friends but when he did make them, he kept them.

But this was Tony’s day with his dad and he wasn’t going to share it. Tony refocused his eyes on the street. A black car had pulled up outside. Tony’s heart leapt. He came! He remembered! Tony ran down the stairs through the house to the front door.

“Dad!” he called, pushing past his mother and through the door. But his father wasn’t standing there. It was a man in a green uniform. He looked sadly down at the small boy. Tony looked up at his mother. She had her hand to her mouth and tears were falling down her face. He looked back at the tall man. “Where’s my dad?” he asked, feeling the tears falling down his own cheeks now. The man gave a tight-lipped smile.

“Sorry, kiddo.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

A scream tore from the god’s throat. Pain scorched across his skin like fire across a grassy field. He opened his eyes to see the serpent above him. He whimpered and pleaded. He prayed to his father to make it stop. The acid pooled on the edge of its fang once more. He cried louder still, struggling against his bindings. He felt the ropes cut further into his skin and fresh blood dripping down his fingertips. He felt the hard stone beneath his back rip and tear at his skin but still he could not move. The trickster remained bound as he watched the drop begin to fall in horror. It fell slowly, landing on his skin with a splash. He cried out through his hoarse throat, tasting the flecks of blood on his tongue. The acid burned through his face, seeming as a knife slowly being pushed deeper into his flesh. He felt the last strands of intact flesh tear across his cheek. He howled, cursing the gods and giants alike. Then the pain was gone. Loki enjoyed the brief moment of tranquillity. There was no pain. He counted to five and opened his eyes. Above him, the acid had pooled again on the tip of the fang, ready to burn the flesh anew. He steeled himself and, as the acid began to fall, closed his eyes as it all began again.


	2. How to Get Noticed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of bombers blow up a building and Tony meets Peter.

It’s been three months. Things had started to quiet down but Peter was sure it wouldn’t last. It never did after all. Doctor Connors was being held in some facility run by some company Peter had never heard of and he was cured. They all were. Everyone that The Lizard had infected had been cured when Peter used the Gonali device to disperse the serum. The investigation into Oscorp following the attack was shoved aside by their army of money waving lawyers and now no one will go within ten miles of the case. It was still a major topic for discussion but Peter didn’t care. It was over. Connors was in jail, the people cured and he was still an anonymous vigilante. Okay, so being hunted by the police every time he tried to help kind of sucked but at least he was helping. And anyway, he knows it wasn’t Oscorp’s fault. It was his. Gwen would kill him for thinking that but it’s true. He gave Connors the formula, he perfected the serum; he made it possible for him to do what he did. The Lizard was his creation, his responsibility, his fault. Gwen hated it when he blamed himself. She said he would have perfected the formula with or without his help.

It was just a matter of time.

She and Peter had gotten back together a month after the funeral, five weeks after the attack. He couldn’t leave her, she needed him too much. That was one of the things he liked about her. She didn’t need Spiderman, she just needed Peter. After everything that had happened, Peter was glad when things finally fell back into a routine. Breakfast, school, patrol, Gwen’s, groceries, home.

Things were finally getting back to normal.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“Spiderman…” Tony mused as he watched a video on his tablet. The red and blue clad figure on the screen swung across the alleyway by what looked like cables from his wrists. “Interesting…”

“Yeah, I know,” Bruce mumbled from the other side of the lab. Since ‘the Incident’ (which was what everyone called the invasion to make it less terrifying) Bruce, Natasha and Clint had been living in Stark Tower with Tony and Pepper. Natasha and Clint were there to keep him in line and Bruce was there because he realised how much he missed being in a lab and how much he missed talking to someone who spoke ‘proper English’, meaning Tony. He didn’t mind though. It was nice to have someone to share the lab with, someone who understood what was going on. Pepper was still busy ‘running the company’ as she so often liked to remind him and Thor went back to Asgard with Loki. They hadn’t heard from him since the Incident.

Much like the Captain. Steve had disappeared shortly after as well. None of the other Avengers had heard from him, no one had seen him (and it was kind of hard for Steve to get around without being noticed nowadays) and he hadn’t been to any of his usual haunts. Even SHIELD had no idea where he’d gone. It was worrying to say the least.

“Have you seen this?” Tony asked, flicking a clip of footage off the screen, causing it to materialise as a hologram before him. Tony’s eyes watched the figure swing with fascination, keeping themselves fixed to the cable connecting the man to the building. “What I wouldn’t give to have a sample of that stuff.”

“Of course.” Tony turned to look at the physicist. He had his nose buried in a microscope and his mind was clearly on other things.

A smirk pulled at Tony’s lips.

“You know Fury wants him to fill in for Thor?”

“W-what?” Bruce’s attention was immediately captured. “B-but Thor, he’s-“

“Relax, Doc! I was joking! Fabio’s spot is safe and sound.” Bruce gave a sigh of relief, glaring whole-heatedly at Tony. “But Fury is scouting him though.”

“Why?”

“Have you ever heard of The Lizard?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Clint sat, as he always did, on the roof of Stark Tower over looking New York. In the six months since the Incident, the city had recovered remarkably well. A majority of the damaged buildings had either been demolished or repaired, the roads repaved and, of course, the alien bodies confiscated. The speed of the removal did nothing to quell the conspiracy theorists. Clint chuckled. _If only they knew._ He looked out toward the sunset. It was already five PM. He should probably head inside soon and make sure the geeks hadn’t blown up the-

_BOOM!_

Clint spun round to see a cloud of smoke rising from the West. He normally wouldn’t have thought anything of it - a demolition job or something (God knows there had been plenty of those lately) – but then he saw it. What looked like string flew form the cloud, arching and falling, and a flash of red and blue. He pulled his phone from his pocket while keeping his eyes fixed on the fight and punched in the number for the Tower.

“Jarvis, put me through to the lab.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“He showed up out of nowhere four months ago, took down a giant lizard and then went back to rounding up robbers and rapists.”

“And your point is?” Bruce sighed. Tony had been going on like this for the past half hour. Bruce just wanted him to shut up so he could get back to work.

“How are you not interested?!” Tony all but yelled at the man.

Bruce just didn’t get it. It was just some other guy in a mask. It’s not like it was anything new. “Tony, you didn’t care this much when mutants started popping up everywhere, so why do you care about his guy?”

“Because I-“

“Sir, Agent Barton is on the line,” Jarvis interrupted.

Tony sighed, dropping the argument. How had it even started anyway? “Put him through, Jarvis.”

“Stark,” Barton called. It was hard to hear him over the rushing of air.

“Barton, how’s the weather out there?” Tony joked, leaning back in his chair.

“You still interested in that Spiderman guy?”

Tony almost lost his balance. He jumped to his feet, staring intently at the ceiling. “Yeah,” he said slowly.

“’Cause I got an eye on him.”

That was all the encouragement Tony needed. He jumped excitedly and ran to the door. “I’d get to the control room if I were you!” Tony called to Bruce his voice echoing down the hall as he called for Jarvis to deploy the Mach 7 suit. Bruce sighed inwardly. Was he ever going to get a peaceful day?

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Tony was speeding through the sky, shouting at Barton for directions.

“How could you get lost?” he cried over the headset “I told you to look for the explosion!”

“Real helpful, Birdbrain!” Tony snapped round a corner, picking up more speed. _Where is it? Where is it?_ But Tony didn’t need to find it. A figure in red and blue swept across the street in front of him. “Barton, I got him!” Tony took off, heading straight after the figure. He couldn’t help but be taken with the grace of his movements. He swung from one building to another with practiced ease that looked almost artful in its precision. Left too late and you could hit the ground, done too soon and you could fall. Tony kicked up the speed again and levelled himself off with him. He was struck by his size. Spiderman was a lot smaller than Tony thought. He had a lithe figure with slight muscle visible through the skin-tight suit. “Hey, kid!” Tony called.

Spiderman’s head snapped round. “Shit-!” he stumbled and missed his mark. The web came up short. And Spiderman fell. Tony dove to catch him but he already had another grapple point, swinging safely again. Tony could tell all the guy’s senses were fixed on him.

“Close one, kid!” Tony shouted over the roaring wind.

“Dude! You’re mother-hugging _Iron Man_!” he called in reply. Tony chuckled.

“Yep, that’s me. Genius, billionaire, superhero. And you are?”

“You don’t know who I am?” Tony could almost see the pout through the mask.

“No, I know who _he_ is,” Tony gesture to the mask and outfit. “But who are you?”

“Nice try!” he laughed.

“Can’t blame a guy, can you Spidey?”

“Who you callin’ Spidey, Tin Man?” Tony laughed. The kid had a sense of humour at least.

“Hey, kid, why don’t you stop so we can talk for a bit?” Spiderman pulled a hand to his chin in a thoughtful gesture.

“Sorry! No can do.” He flicked his wrist and the next thing Tony saw was white. He tried to claw the gunk off his eyes but he couldn’t get it. Tony flipped open his helmet.

Spiderman was gone.


	3. The Hunt is Afoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers decide it's in Spiderman's best interest if they get to him before Fury, it starts to snow, Steve is all alone, Loki gets sprung and Peter adopts a kitten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so, um, I just wanted to say thank you to those people that took the time to read this and leave kudos and special thanks to agirl4spidey for commenting. I hope you keep reading and keep enjoying!
> 
> If anyone get's too desperate for more, I've posted up to chapter 8 on fanfiction.net which can be found here; http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8822233/1/Ragnarok
> 
> Thanks for reading guys!

Tony was pacing endlessly up and down the conference room. The team (or what was left of it) had gathered around the table in the centre while Tony thought of a plan of action. He didn’t like this. He never liked not having the upper hand. As much as he was idly curious about Spiderman’s identity it was now a matter of pride. He had been outsmarted and so had to be even smarter. If he could just figure out who the kid was…

“Hey, Bruce,” he asked, turning to the table. “How long until the tests are done on that web stuff?”

“Well, they would be done a lot quicker if you hadn’t called us all up here to sit around and watch you brood,” he sighed, quietly twirling a pen in his fingers. Tony glared at him and opened his mouth to tell him off when Natasha jumped in.

“Why do you care about this guy so much anyway, Stark?”

“Hey, yeah!” _Here we go,_ Tony sighed, _lovebird to the rescue._

“Well, Katniss, you saw him. How was he in a fight?” Tony asked, eyebrow raised.

All eyes turned to Clint. He shifted under their gaze. Being an assassin meant that Clint was unaccustomed to being seen and having all the attention? Well, that was just down right unnerving. He picked his tablet off the table and tapped away at it until he found what he was looking for. He swiped his finger across the screen and a small clip of video footage appeared on the monitor behind Tony. The small assembly turned to watch the shaky video feed. It was clearly attached to Clint somewhere. It showed a recording of the fight between Spiderman and the bombers. Tony watched with a small smile, having already seen the footage and knowing just how good the kid was. Natasha leaned over the table with interest. She made a thoughtful gesture with her hand.

“He’s got skill, I’ll give him that.” The attention turned to her as she spoke. She was not nearly as uncomfortable with it as Clint but that didn’t mean she liked it either. “He’s been trained. I can see taekwondo, karate, judo,” the figure on the screen hefted a pipe above his head and swung it at one of the bombers, bringing it down with incredible force, knocking the man out. “Kendo,” she chuckled. “But also some straight out boxing, kick boxing and maybe Tai boxing too.”

“So, basically, he can fight. And he’s smart,” Tony said, summing it up for everyone.

“How do you know that?” Clint asked.

“Well, while you were out stealing from the rich and giving to the poor I met the kid, remember?” Tony picked his own tablet from the table and flicked a series of photographs onto the monitor. The first showed Spiderman mid swing. The second showed a close up of his arm and the third was an even closer shot of his wrist. On which sat a small device. Bruce, who had until this point been sitting in his chair quietly listening to the deliberations, stood and walked over to get a better look.

“What are they?” he asked as he fitted his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

“My best guess is that those,” Tony tapped the screen for emphasis. “Is how he’s making this web stuff.”

“They look homemade.”

“My point exactly. If he can make this stuff, he’s gotta be pretty smart, right?” Everyone gave begrudging murmurs of agreement. “In that case, we should find him.”

“Why?” Clint questioned.

“Oh, come on,” Tony sighed in frustration. “You can’t tell me Fury’s happy about this guy running around without a leash. And I’m sure he’d fit right into our super-secret boy band!”

The group exchanged knowing glances but nonetheless agreed. They all knew why Tony wanted to find this kid but he was right. Spiderman would make a nice addition to the team. He was fast, strong, good in a fight and clearly intelligent (which is probably all Tony cared about, really). That would make him an incredibly useful asset. But that was where Tony drew the line. He didn’t want SHIELD to find out they were tracking Spiderman. Fury had a way of messing these things up and Tony didn’t want him to turn Spiderman into another tool to be used at his discretion. They all agreed to leave SHIELD out of the loop on this one.

“So, how are we going to find him?” Natasha asked, toying with her tablet as she punched in search after search.

“When I spoke to him he seemed young. I’m gunna say age bracket… seventeen to twenty-five.” Tony chuckled. “He called me ‘mother-hugging Iron Man’.”

Bruce smiled then turned serious. “So with that age bracket we can say he’s either in school or recently graduated. We could look at school records and see if anyone fits the profile?”

“Wow, doc, I didn’t know you were so good at playing detective.” Clint’s comment earned a collective laugh but the team were too focused to be entertained for long.

“He must live close by because he reached that explosion within minutes of detonation,” Clint said, re-watching the footage on his tablet.

“Okay, so, I’m confining the search to the city limits.” Natasha pounded in more searches.

“If he’s that intelligent he would have gone to a decent school,” Tony chipped in.

“Right, there are around six dozen private schools in the city,” she said grimly.

“No,” Bruce said from his position in front of the monitor. He was looking at the device on Spiderman’s wrist again. “If he went to a private school he’d probably be able to afford better equipment than this. I can see half an analogue radio and pieces of an old doorbell in here.”

“There are twenty public schools.”

“How many of those are high end?” Tony asked.

“Thirteen.”

“Right, but look at the ones with an engineering and science focus because he’d definitely need those to make these,” Bruce put in.

“Then we have one.” All eyes turned to Natasha. She flicked a picture of a small brick building onto the screen in front of them. “Midtown Science.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

 

Peter winced as Gwen hugged him tightly. He pulled his face into a wide smile as she turned back to face him. Gwen didn’t need to know that he was hurt. He didn’t want her to worry about him. Besides, as long as they didn’t hurt his face he could hide it and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. One of the bombers from yesterday had gotten a good hit in and knocked him back into a piece of flaming timber. He knew that the burns to his back and side were probably pretty bad but they were bandaged and they were healing quite fast. It was another perk to his run-in with his father’s spiders.

“Peter, are you okay?” Gwen asked worriedly. “You look kind of stretched.”

“No, no, I’m just tired. Patrol went a little longer than expected last night.” He smiled and tried to shrug it off. For the most part, Gwen didn’t push the subject but she still told him not to come over tonight and go home to get some rest instead. He reluctantly agreed. He took her hand and they wandered back through the school to the front gate. Gwen had a presentation to give in the science labs that afternoon and so Peter had been waiting for her. And when he said waiting he meant sitting on the roof and jumping down on her. She’d nearly slapped him and started berating him with questions like ‘what if somebody sees?’ and ‘do you think that was funny?’. It really was. They stepped out of the science block and gazed up at the sky. Snow was spiralling down from the darkening clouds.

“Looks like it’s going to storm,” Gwen mused, watching the flakes fall like a fascinated child.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed without taking his eyes off his girlfriend. She looked absolutely beautiful. Her lips had gone bright red against her pale skin with the cold and her blonde hair fell like spun sunshine around her face (hold on, when did he get so poetic?). The image shattered as Gwen turned to look at him with a fierce, commanding expression.

“Peter, don’t go out patrolling tonight. You’ll get pneumonia. Not to mention how run down you are already.” Despite her apparent anger, Peter knew she was really just worried about him.

“Alright, I won’t go out tonight,” Peter lied. He could take a night off but all the thugs that beat and rob innocent people wouldn’t.

Gwen looked at him, unsatisfied, but said nothing. She reached up, kissed him and went off down the road to her home. Peter let out a deep sigh, wishing they lived closer together. Gwen lived in the high-rise part of the city near all the apartment buildings, office towers and, the most memorable landmark, Stark Tower. Peter lived in the opposite direction in the residential part of the city; small houses, cottages and corner shops. When he got a job (assuming he could keep one living his double life) he would like to move Aunt May into a nice apartment that wouldn’t be so hard for her to take care of, somewhere closer to Gwen. Peter had to face the fact that she wasn’t as young as she used to be and losing Uncle Ben had taken its toll on her.

Peter meandered down an alley, figuring it to be a good enough spot. He found a space that wasn’t sleeted with snow and climbed the brick face to the roof of the building. He walked to a small venting pipe sticking out of the floor and pulled the grate off. He changed out of his day clothes, donning his alter ego to prepare for the nights activities. He hid his bag in the pipe using his web to stick it to the wall out of sight, replaced the grate and swung off into the worsening weather.

 

**~AVENGERS**

“Hey, Steve, could you clear three please?”

Steve looked over to his manager, a pretty brunette of about twenty-seven named Kathy.

“Sure,” he smiled.

She had been very good to him. After the Incident, Steve needed to get away. He needed time to think without SHIELD breathing down his neck. He packed up his things and ran. It was actually a lot easier than he thought to dodge them. He knocked out the two guards that they had trailing him with ease and then it was a simple matter of avoiding cameras and those ‘credit card’ things that they had given him. He supposed that Fury assumed because Steve was a solider he wouldn’t abandon his post but that wasn’t necessarily true. If he needed to get away he would get away. So here he was. He’d managed to get two states away before he ran out of cash, which wasn’t much. Kathy had found him walking down a street in the middle of a storm and picked him up. She’d let him stay at her house for a while. Once she’d gotten him a job at her café and he had enough money he had insisted on moving into a hotel. At first she’d asked him all kinds of questions about who he was and where he’d come from but eventually she settled on just one.

“What are you running from?”

Steve looked up at her, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you won’t tell me who you are or where you’re from and you never talk about it which means the logical answer is that you’re running away. So, what are you running from?”

Steve’s eyes dropped to his hands. Kathy was a smart girl, too smart to be waiting tables. He knew she’d figure it out eventually, he’d just hoped it wouldn’t be this soon.

“I found out something.” When he finally spoke Kathy scooted closer. She was finally getting some answers to the enigmatic Steve Rogers. “Something I wasn’t ready to know. Something I didn’t know how to deal with. So, I ran.”

“Steve,” Kathy placed her hand over his. “Whatever it is, you can’t keep running forever. I’m sure there’s somebody out there that’s wondering where you are.”

“I haven’t had anybody in a long time, Kathy,” Steve smiled sadly. And it was true. Everyone he knew had died before he even woke up. He was completely alone.

“You’ve got me, stupid!” She punched him in the arm playfully and gave him a friendly smile.

“And I thank God every day.”

“You better!” she laughed.

That had been over two weeks ago. As Steve cleared the table he wondered absently why he hadn’t left. He supposed he was still not ready to deal with it. It had been hard to accept when he’d heard but he didn’t think it gave him the right to run like he had. He wondered if the team really were worried about him. He scoffed at the thought. If anyone was worried about him it was probably Fury because he didn’t know whether he was out destroying towns or not. Steve laughed bitterly.

He truly was all alone.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Loki sobbed weakly, the tears stinging his ruined flesh as he cried. Pain scorched through his being, tearing at him body and soul. He wept helplessly at the never-ending torment he was forced to endure. Time crawled by here. How long had it been? Hours? Days? He doubted he would ever know and knew he wouldn’t care. He wanted it to end but he feared the end for he knew what he was supposed to do. The end of the pain meant the start of something worse. He wished he could repent but knew that no amount of begging would stop what was to come. He knew he was doomed to the fait written by his elders centuries ago. All at once the pain stopped. Loki cried harder knowing that it would not last. Peace dangled before him on a string to make it hurt worse when the agony began again. And it worked every time. Every cycle would burn stronger than the last. He just had to wait.

_1, 2, 3, 4, 5…_

There was still no pain. Loki opened his eyes to find the snake gone. He gave a choked laugh. No more pain. He laughed harder, felt the tears trace down his face. He could feel it. He could feel the tears. It was one of the sweetest feelings in the world. He felt whole.

“Calm yourself, trickster,” came an odd voice. There was something wrong with it. It echoed somehow in the open space.

“Who are you?” Loki asked. Despite his poor condition his voice still dripped with venom. A figure walked into his field of vision. It was a woman. She was beautiful. She had hair as black as pitch and eyes as green as emeralds. She stepped toward Loki and laid a hand on his arm. Both of their skin began to turn a deep navy blue. Loki’s eyes widened and he turned back to the woman.

“It’s time, my son.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Peter limped down the street. It was almost midnight and he knew Aunt May would be waiting for him when he got home. The storm had turned into a full blown blizzard. Patrol had gone along easily enough, just a few back alley beatings to deal with and no new injuries to cover up. He’d changed back into his regular clothes and started home but the weather was making the trek difficult. He hugged his jacket closer around him. He had definitely not dressed for this kind of weather. Thunder cracked overhead. Peter would normally not have bothered but today he looked up. Ever since the Incident people have been watching the skies, Peter included, but he thought he’d gotten over it. Today though something compelled him to look up and if he hadn’t perhaps the next few weeks would have gone very differently.

But Peter had looked up. And what he saw terrified him. Above in the clouds a tornado was forming. A tornado made entirely of clouds and split with green lightning. It was like nothing Peter had ever seen before. It reminded him of the vortex he had seen in the sky on the day of the Incident but it was so different. Peter froze, alone in the street, and watched. It grew in length and speed. The eerily green bolts of electricity sliced through the sky, drowning the city in its strange light. It descended further and then it hit the ground. Peter felt the ground shake under his feet but the twister had landed several blocks away. Peter waited for it to start moving, to start throwing cars and trees, to again destroy the city on the verge of recovery. But nothing happened. It stayed where it was for several moments. There was a final lightning strike that seemed to travel down the eye of the tornado where it hit the ground.

And then it vanished.

The entire tornado, the lightning, the green glow, the funnel of clouds, all of it just disappeared. It dispersed into the air so quickly that you might of though it had never been there at all. Peter looked at his watch. The entire thing had happened in less than two minutes. Peter stared at where the twister had been and his mind was made up. He started to run. He jumped. And then he started to swing. He wanted to see. It took him approximately forty-five seconds to reach the sight. He dropped to the pavement. He was at the skate park on the edge of the city. The usually lively hang out was abandoned in the horrid weather. Lucky.

“Holy shit…” Peter gasped. In the centre of the snow covered concrete bowl was a giant circle burned into the cement. Strange symbols and patterns spread from the outer ring to the middle. Peter didn’t recognise any of them. His eyes traced a single straight line running from the outermost curve to the innermost. In the centre, slowly being covered over by the raging blizzard was a small black bundle. Peter ran forward falling to his knees in front of it. The bundle was tiny, small enough to fit in the palms of Peter’s hands, and covered in silky black fur. Peter gently rolled it over to see the sleeping face of a kitten. It couldn’t have been more than three weeks old. Its leg was twisted into an unnatural angle. Peter pulled his jacket off and wrapped the cat in the soft fabric and hugged it close, trying to rub some warmth into the lifeless bundle. Peter turned on his heel and sped home, desperate to get out of the weather and get the kitten to somewhere it could warm up.

He burst through the door to his house, calling for his aunt knowing she would still be up.

“Peter? What’s…” she asked coming around the door from the kitchen. She saw the frantic look on his face and the bundle in his arms.

“Aunt May, I can’t get it warm and I think its leg is broken,” Peter blurted.

“Okay, Peter. Calm down and let me see.” Aunt May walked towards him and peeled back the jacket to look at the cat. She seemed momentarily surprised but quickly started giving orders. “Peter, give it to me and go to the kitchen. Under the sink is the first aid kit. Bring that, some blankets and a hot water bottle back here. Off you go.”

Peter did as he was told, taking no longer than two minutes to return with the requested items. Aunt May handed the kitten back to Peter and told him to sit in front of the heater. She tossed one of the blankets over his shoulders and another in his lap. She laid the water bottle down over the blanket and told him to put the cat on top. He did.

“Now, let’s see to that leg.” She pulled the jumper gently away from the sleeping ball of fur, leaving it shivering in Peter’s lap. He looked at it worriedly. “He’ll be fine Peter. He’s strong.” Peter gave her a weak smile as she went back to work. May took the broken leg in her hand and looked at Peter. “Hold him still. This is going to hurt him.” Peter placed a tentative hand on the kitten’s stomach and the other on its head to keep it in place. “Okay, one, two, three!” She twisted the leg and there was crunching noise as the bone slipped back in place. The cat kicked and meowed quietly but otherwise didn’t complain. That made Peter worried. Aunt May carefully plastered and splinted the limb, taking care not to cause the creature further distress. When she’d finished she left the room and returned a few minutes later with a warm cup of tea for Peter and more blankets and pillows.

“I have a feeling you two are going to be inseparable so sleep here in front of the heater to keep him warm.”

“Thanks Aunt May,” Peter sighed, taking careful sips of the tea and settling down onto the floor, moving the cat and water bottle to his chest, draping another blanket over the top of it. “I’ll have to think of a name for you,” he yawned, his eyes sliding closed. The kitten gave a gentle purr and Peter smiled.

Somehow, he felt like he’d never done more good in his life.


	4. Back to School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony abuses his billionaire powers, Kit may be from Asgard and Clint's a stalker.

It had only taken a single call to Midtown Science High and Tony’s name to get them to hand over their student files. Tony had spouted some BS about a potential internship for someone at their school and the possibility of donation which made it seem too good to be true. Of course, no one at the records office had thought ‘well, then it must be.’ Which made the Avengers jobs all that much easier. They had spent the last two days dividing up and scouring the files for potential Spidermen. Tony didn’t understand how half of these kids had gotten into that school. They were as dumb as doorknobs! Some of the files made Tony feel like he’d rather be hitting his head against a brick wall.

“How about this kid? Flash Thompson.” Natasha asked. “He’s captain of the basketball team, trained in taekwondo-“

“That kid’s a jock,” Bruce interrupted. The doctor never interrupted. The team took it as a sign that they really needed a break. “All he does is beat on small kids and get straight C’s. He’s as dull as a brick and probably couldn’t change a light bulb.”

“And he’s too big,” Tony chipped in. “The kid was scrawny. He looked like the Cap pre-serum.” An intense silence filled the room at the mention of Steve. Everyone was worried about him. Tony was constantly checking any information network he had for sign of the Captain but there was still nothing. They all missed him and they all wanted him home.

“Maybe we can narrow the search more,” Clint mused.

“How, Legolas?”

“Well, maybe he’s got some motivation for what he’s doing. I mean, we all started for a reason, right?”

“I started because I was sick of the things I made killing the people they were meant to protect,” Tony supplied.

“I started because I had nowhere to run and no one to turn to and I didn’t want anyone else to know what that feels like,” Natasha answered.

“I started because the military took away my life and I thought I might be able to do something good with what I had left,” Bruce stated. All eyes turned back to Clint. No one but Natasha and SHIELD knew why he started. He’d known he would have to tell them eventually but he didn’t think it would be so hard.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and answered, “I started because someone took everything from me and when I took everything from them I needed something to fill the void.” SHIELD had filled the void, given him something to live for, but now he supposed that the Avengers were filling that void. The Avengers were his new family.

“Right!” Tony said hopefully. “If this kid had a reason for running around in a leotard, what would it be?”

“Maybe he just enjoys it?” Bruce thought.

“No, no, it’s never that simple,” Natasha dismissed. “Maybe he feels responsible for something?”

“Or maybe he lost someone,” Clint said quietly. Tony snapped his fingers. He snatched a tablet off the table and typed quickly at the screen. Six different files appeared on the monitor when he’d finished. The team looked over them.

“These are the kids that fit our age bracket who had deaths in the family around the time Spiderman first appeared.”

Natasha began opening them one at a time, listing the information of each while the rest of the team scrutinized the data. The first picture magnified on the screen. It showed a young boy with acne, glasses and glassy green eyes. He fit the ‘nerd’ bill perfectly

“Aaron Harkness. Nineteen, straight A’s, accomplished in physics and engineering. Six months ago his mother died in a car accident. By peer accounts he became ‘reclusive and uncaring.’ As far as I can tell, he has no combat training and no prior history of violent behaviour.”

“Hmm. I don’t think so,” Tony said as he stared at the picture. He just didn’t seem like the kind of kid to go and beat up criminals in the dead of night.

“Clint, you’re the one with experience here. What do you think?” Bruce asked, unable to form an opinion. Clint looked at the photo again, running through the information again in his mind.

“I don’t think it’s this kid.”

“Right, well,” Natasha opened the next file. They went through it much the same as they had the last; everyone reviewed the data, gave an opinion and then the decision fell to Clint. They repeated this for the next three files, each time Barton shook his head. When they opened the fifth file he stopped. The kid on the screen was young, the youngest of the lot. He was a relatively attractive guy but he looked like he couldn’t possibly put more product in his hair. He had hazel eyes and chestnut hair. He looked innocent enough in the photo but something about him stuck out to Clint. “Peter Parker,” Natasha read. “Seventeen, straight A’s, accomplished all round… no parents.” Everyone in the team turned to look at the boy on the screen. “His parents died in a plane crash when he was six and left him in the care of his aunt and uncle. The uncle, Benjamin Parker, was killed in a stabbing outside a convenience store five months ago. The killer was never caught. Just before the murder he started to get into trouble. He broke a school basketball backboard and humiliated the school bully, Flash Thompson.”

“I told you that guy was no good,” Bruce smirked. Natasha made a mocking face and kept reading.

“He also impersonated an intern and snuck into Oscorp’s main building.”

“Hey, Bruce, what did you say that web stuff Spidey uses was?” Tony asked.

“Umm.” Bruce tapped hurriedly on his tablet. “Uh, Biocable. It’s made from genetically altered spider silk. It’s made by…” Bruce faltered for a moment before looking up at the group. “It’s made by Oscorp.”

Tony looked at the screen for a moment before he had a thought. “Romanov, was there a picture of the guy that killed the kid’s uncle?”

“There was a sketch.” She flicked the picture up onto the screen. An artist’s sketch of a ruff looking man with shoulder length hair and sunglasses stared at them from its surface.

“Huh,” Tony mused before swapping the picture out for a number of others that looked almost identical to the sketch. “When Spiderman first started out all the criminals he turned in looked alike. The police labelled him a vigilante because they thought he had some kind of vendetta against a guy who looked like this.” Tony brought up the sketch to join the photos of the other men. “I think we know why.”

“Well, there’s certainly enough reason to suspect him. But it’s up to Clint,” Natasha said, turning to look at her partner.

He hadn’t stopped staring at the picture since it came onto the screen. It was just so familiar. He reminded Clint of himself before SHIELD found him. He’d been lost and doing just about anything he could to get back at the men who took everything he held dear and crushed it. He was trying to find meaning in life. In the photo Peter looked like he was searching for the same thing. But Clint guessed he’d found it because he stopped going after this guy and started helping people. This Parker kid was on the right track but Clint was worried that without help Peter would soon get himself hurt or worse. He looked to Tony who he realized had been watching him.

“It’s him.”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be without meeting him.”

“Right,” Tony clapped his hands together. “Now how are we going to bring him over to the dark side?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Peter stirred. He felt something warm on his chest. He opened his eyes to see the small black kitten still curled under the blanket. Peter smiled softly, the memory of the night’s events returning to him. The kitten breathed deeply atop the water bottle, a good sign that the cold hadn’t damaged his health too severely. Peter gave a gentle sigh of contentment and closed his eyes again. He thought about the kitten curled up on his stomach; so small and so vulnerable. It reminded Peter of himself pre-Spiderman. He’d spent all his time getting beaten on by one bully or another and that was his life. He’d just accepted it. He was small and unimportant. That was who he was and he’d just gone with it. He couldn’t help but wonder what his life would have been like if he had just stayed with the tour group like Gwen told him to. He would have remained the misfit at school. He would have been the black sheep. _Or the black cat as it were._ He chuckled lightly.

Pain stabbed through Peter’s chest. He hissed and opened his eyes to find a pair of blazing impossibly blue eyes staring at him from under the blanket. The kitten shot to its feet, stumbling over the cast on its leg and falling off Peter’s chest. Peter caught the cat just in time.

“Wow, little guy,” Peter laughed as he set the ball of fur onto the carpet. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.” It looked up at Peter indignantly and gave a long meow. It stopped, its eyes growing wide, and looked down at its body. It gave a loud yowl and began pacing up and down with what could only be described a rant. Peter watched it and laughed. There was something so human about what it was doing that Peter couldn’t help but find it hilarious. The cat looked up at him and glared. Peter just laughed harder.

“Peter? Come have some breakfast,” Aunt May called from the kitchen.

“Coming!” Peter heaved himself to his feet, instantly feeling the chill away from the blankets, and headed to the kitchen. Aunt May had a plate of bacon and eggs laid out for him. He fell into the chair and ate hungrily.

“So what are you going to call him?” Aunt May asked. Peter gave her a questioning look and she motioned to the kitten that had made his way into the kitchen and was now sitting in a corner busily eating some cut up sausage. Peter thought for a moment.

“Kit. I think I like Kit. What do you think?” He asked the small ball of fur. It poked its tongue out at him and fell to its haunches in a huff.

“Kit it is,” she laughed.

“And in other news, strange marking have been found…” the TV on the counter blared the news report. Peter turned to look at the screen. He froze. On the screen was the same circle of markings that Peter had picked Kit up from last night. He listened silently as the report continued. From the floor below Kit did the same. “…scientists believe that these tell the return of Thor, a member of the Avengers and our ally during the attack known as The Incident. SHIELD is refusing to give a statement on the matter but…”

“Sorry, Aunt May. I gotta go.” Peter stood up and headed to the door.

“Wait! Peter! You haven’t even showered yet!” Her calls went unheard as Peter scooped his bag, skateboard and jacket off the floor before closing the door behind him. Aunt May sighed. “That boy…” She turned to the corner where Kit had been seated. Lying by the emptied plate was the small cast that had been around his leg. But there was no sign of the black kitten.

He was gone.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“This is stupid.”

“It was your idea, Robin.”

“I was joking!”

“Would you two cut it out! We’re on a mission, remember?”

The meeting of the night previous had ended with an agreement on two points. The first being that they couldn’t approach Peter unless they were sure he was Spiderman. The second being that if Peter _was_ Spiderman, they would do everything they could to keep his identity from Fury. Peter was just a kid and Natasha and Clint knew better than anyone that Fury showed no mercy, child or no. So the discussion had turned to how to determine if Peter was really Spiderman. Tony had suggested that he talk to him as the kid seemed to have some (idiotic, in Clint’s opinion) admiration for Tony. This was when the first point was agreed upon. Bruce had said if they could get him a blood sample then he could run an analysis to look for anomalies that would point toward a genetic mutation that granted him his abilities. This was turned down because everyone thought it would be too difficult to get the blood and the analysis might not turn up anything. They already knew that the webs were homemade so why not the rest of his powers? Natasha had thought of searching Peter’s room while he was out and looking for his costume or anything that would confirm their suspicions. This had been ruled out as too risky and an invasion of privacy. That was when Clint had jokingly suggested that he ‘stalk’ the kid until he put the mask on. Unfortunately for him, everyone had taken the suggestion seriously.

And here they were. Clint was perched atop the building opposite the Parker household. It was incredibly early in the morning. Tony had forced him out of bed at three AM shouting something along the lines of ‘the early bird gets the spider’. Tony and Clint had been bickering via radio for the past five hours. Bruce, who was sitting in the ‘control room’ as Tony called it, was finally starting to lose his patience. When Bruce got angry that meant you’d reached the final straw. They both stopped immediately.

“Jeese Bruce, I need to keep you around more often,” Natasha chuckled at the sudden radio silence. She was ten blocks away at the school returning all the files they borrowed and asking the teachers some questions about Peter. It was Saturday so not many of them were available but the head teachers had gathered for a staff meeting.

“I’ve got movement.” The entire group silenced. Bruce was sitting watching the video feed from Clint’s chest. The door swung open and the young boy stepped out. He was even smaller than Clint had imagined. “Jesus, somebody get that kid a steak.” Peter swung on his jacket and backpack before dropping his board to the icy ground and taking off. Clint went after him, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, keeping his attention divided between Peter and where he was going. Peter sped past the school and kept going. They started coming into high-rise area and Clint was forced higher to reach the rooves, making it more difficult for him to keep track of the kid. Difficult but not impossible. He kept following him. “We’re moving closer to Stark Tower here guys.”

“Why the hell is he coming here?” Tony asked, the loud snapping and crackling of a welder in the background signalling his return to the lab.

“I never said he was _going_ to Stark Tower. I said he was getting close, bolts for brains.”

“I swear to God, if you two start again-“

“Wait, he stopped.”

Silence.

“So? What’s he doing here, Barton?” Clint started laughing. Bruce quickly joined in. “What?”

“A girl.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Peter waited in the elevator, tapping his foot nervously and watching the numbers scroll by. He wanted to get to Gwen. He wanted to tell her about Kit and about the markings and get her advice. She was always smarter than him and always more sensible. He didn’t know what to make of the information he had. No matter what way he put the pieces together it just didn’t seem to make sense. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He hurried down the corridor until he found apartment 316. He smiled as he remembered the way Gwen had repeated those numbers over and over when she’d invited him to dinner months ago. It seemed so long. He knocked and it opened almost immediately to the face of Mrs Stacy.

“Peter,” she smiled. “Come on in. Gwen’s in her room.” Peter thanked her and made his way inside. Ever since he and Gwen got back together he had frequented the Stacy’s home and after the first few weeks Gwen had convinced him to use the front door instead of the balcony. He was now a welcome guest. Peter would often bring this or that for Gwen’s mother; a bouquet of flowers, a bottle of wine. Just something to say thank you for tolerating his frequent unexpected visits. Of course, she didn’t know when Peter came over at ungodly hours of the morning because Gwen asked or because he just wanted to see her. It always amazed Peter that she never looked exhausted like he did. He was sure that she slept just as little as Peter and he always berated himself for making her worry but as soon as she got that text at two in the morning when Peter usually knocked off she was sound asleep. It was a little ritual they’d developed. Whenever Peter went out patrolling he would text her when he got home. It was just to let her know that he was safe and everything was fine. He’d forgotten once. He would never forget again. Gwen had run back to his house at four in the morning and banged on the door. When Aunt May opened it she pushed straight past her and ran up to Peter’s room, throwing herself on top of him. She’s hit him and cried. After an hour of this she fell asleep. In the morning they had explained to Aunt May that one of Gwen’s relatives had died and she just couldn’t be at home that night. She had been incredibly understanding and told her to stay as long as she needed.

That was about two months ago. Now, as Peter stepped into Gwen’s room, he remembered last night’s text. He’d sent it from the rooftop after he changed into his street clothes. It had simply said ‘Sleep tight, Gwen.’ He looked at her and smiled. She was seated at her desk bent over a book. She probably hadn’t even heard him come in. Peter crept across the room and bent down next to her ear. He opened his mouth to whisper-

“Did you really think you could sneak up on me, bug boy?” Gwen smiled.

“Oh never…” he mumbled, tilting her face up to his and kissing her gently. When he pulled away a blush had spread across her cheeks and a smile had plastered itself on her face. She looked gorgeous.

“What can I do for you Mr Parker?” she asked in a mockingly formal tone.

“I need advice,” he sighed as he dropped down into the chair next to her. She sat down next to him and listened as he recounted the events of his walk home. She scowled when he told her that he’d gone patrolling despite the weather but said nothing. When he mentioned the cat she looked interested. When he mentioned the markings she looked utterly absorbed.

“And the cat was in the middle of the symbols?”

“Yeah. It’s weird right? The news said that they meant Thor had come back but why was Kit there?”

“Kit?”

“That’s what we’re calling him.”

“Cute,” she smiled.

“Oww!” Peter cried, jumping up.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“It felt like something bit me!” he clawed at the back of his jacket. He yanked it up and over his head throwing it to the floor. He reached down and pulled up what fell out. “What are you…?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“Something’s happening,” Clint reported.

“What the hell?” Tony had since relocated to the control room with Bruce. At the mention of a girl Tony’s interest piqued.

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked, sounding a little worried.

“It looks like he got bitten by something.”

“By what?” Bruce wondered.

“Wait… is that…?” Clint could almost hear Tony squinting at the screen.

“Why the hell did he have a cat in his jacket?!”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

By the time he finished talking to Gwen it was ten o’clock and Peter was due for his weekend rounds. On week days he patrolled from three thirty to two and on weekends from ten to two. Well, at least that was this week. He knew that if he kept the same schedule that someone would eventually boil it down to someone still in school so he changed it every week. Last week on Saturday he worked from three AM to twelve AM. It was just another way of throwing anybody off his trail.

Gwen hadn’t been able to come up with anything in terms of Kit’s appearance in the circle but his appearance in Peter’s jacket had completely lost him the conversation. Gwen was much too interested in the kitten to try and think about it further. Kit, however, as Peter was learning, didn’t like to be treated as anything less than royalty. He detested being picked up and could quiet clearly understand when he was being made fun of. He had nipped at Gwen’s fingers when she tried to pat him but once she started stroking under his chin his face took on a look of pure bliss. He’d told her that he had to go and she gave him that look that said ‘if you come back with anymore injuries I won’t be held responsible for what I do to you’.

Peter had sped home on his board and handed Kit off to Aunt May who had clearly been frantic about finding him. That was when Peter noticed it. He took Kit’s leg in his hand.

“I thought this was broken,” he said.

“So did I.” They looked at each other, confused, but then the clock struck eleven. Peter quickly bid her goodbye and ran out the door again.  He sped down the street until he reached a dark alley.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“Looks like it’s show time,” Clint smirked. He jumped over to the top of one of the building either side of the alley Peter had just turned down. Clint squinted into the darkness to see the kid pulling off his jacket and shirt. “Have you guys got a visual?”

“Yep and it looks like you got it right, Hawkeye.”

Clint nearly toppled over the edge of the building. Stark never called him Hawkeye. He always used some stupid insult or ‘Barton’. Clint smirked. He was going to hold this over him for so long. Down in the alley, Peter was stuffing his clothes into a bag. Under them, he’d been wearing the same red and blue suit they’d all spent the last two days staring at and wondering about. Clint had gotten it right. Peter pushed aside a large and rather full garbage bin with one hand like it was an empty cardboard box. He slipped behind it, stashed his bag and pushed the bin back in place. Peter pulled the mask over his head and turned to scale the wall.

The wall of the building Clint was standing on.

“Shit!” he grumbled, turning and bolting to the other side of the roof, leaping across to the next, slightly shorter, building and dropping onto his back.

“Clint! Get up before you lose him!” Bruce ordered. That was new. Clint pulled himself to his feet just in time to see Spiderman dive over the edge of the building. Clint ran. Spiderman was swinging with tremendous speed. Clint was having trouble keeping up. After three blocks Spiderman was some eighty yards ahead of him and still gaining distance. Clint stopped.

“What are you doing, Legolas?!”

“I can’t keep up with him. Those web things make for some pretty effective transport.”

“Come back to the Tower, Clint. Mission accomplished,” Natasha said over the coms.

“Now we know who we’re dealing with,” Bruce chuckled.

“Now the question is _how_ to deal with him.”

Tony chuckled. “Now that’s an easy one.”


	5. A Series of Unfortunate Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death, autographs and stab wounds. The Avengers have an interesting way of dealing with crises.

Cheering and laughter filled the halls of Asgard that night. Frigga had travelled to all of the nine worlds to collect the promises that would save her son. Long-suffering Balder, plagued by dreams of his death, was now invulnerable thanks to her work. Nothing in all the nine realms could harm him and, believing him to be safe at last, the party had begun. Doubly joyous was this celebration as the Bifrost, the bridge to Earth, had finally been rebuilt. Thor couldn’t be happier. His friends were happy, his brother was safe, and he could soon re-join his friends in the new land of York. He would be able to see Jane. The ridiculous grin on his face grew threefold.

Thor stumbled into the growing circle of gods that had formed around Balder. Everyone was throwing this or that at him and watching in amazement as it just bounced off, Frigga’s promises holding true. Thor laughed as a mug of ale shattered, spraying the crowd with the sticky amber liquid. His brother chuckled along with the rest of the group but Thor saw the slight unease in his stance. He stepped into the circle waving his hands to settle the crowd briefly, walking over to where Balder stood leaning gently against the wall.

“Brother!” Thor greeted, clapping him on the arm. “It is a wondrous day, is it not?”

“Indeed it is and yet I find myself… ah, but that is not talk for a party,” he sighed, leaning against Thor’s shoulder. “This is a day for celebration! Yet here I am, no drink in hand?”

Thor gave a hearty chuckle. “Of course, of course! We can hardly have you dying of thirst now can we!”

Thor ducked off to get the glasses, the smile fading from his face the minute his back was turned. There was something troubling his brother. He had heard stories of the dreams that wracked Balder’s sleep but he would never tell anyone of the exact circumstances. Perhaps… But no. Mother had her promises. Nothing in any of the nine worlds would harm him now. He was perfectly safe. What, then, had his brother so distraught? No matter. As Balder had said, today is not the day.

He grabbed their glasses and returned to the gathering. Balder was standing apart from the wall now, smiling as more objects were tossed toward him. Thor laughed and looked among the crowd at the things being thrown; pots and pans, candles, chairs, swords. There was no limit to the variety. He looked back to Balder. The smile fell from his face again. Balder was staring at the other side of the room, his eyes fixed open and mouth slightly agape. Thor followed his line of sight. There was Hodr, the blind god, the one person that Balder had been trying to avoid. He was standing in the circle joining the festivities. He held above his head a branch aimed at Balder, just like the other gods around him. Thor didn’t understand what had his brother so stunned.

But then he saw it.

A sliver of black locks, pale white skin and a treacherous toothy grin. Hodr pulled his arm back and threw the branch. Balder closed his eyes. Thor cried out. The branch struck Balder in the heart and passed through his chest. Hodr stumbled forward and revealed the hideously mocking face of his supposedly trapped brother. Thor screamed and ran toward Loki. The trickster laughed and vanished before he got the chance to… father, what could he do? He turned back to Balder, collapsing by his side. He pulled his bleeding form into his lap and cradled his head.

“Brother,” came his broken plea. “You’ll be alright. This isn’t the end for you yet, my friend.”

“It is starting…”  Balder whispered. His eyes rolled over to look at Thor. He watched as the light faded from them.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“Excuse me?” a quiet voice asked. Steve turned around to see a gentle looking old woman sitting by herself staring at him expectantly.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”  He walked over and pulled the order pad from the apron wrapped around his hips.

“Yes,” She reached into her handbag and removed a small notebook holding it out to him on a blank page. “Could I have your autograph, Captain?”

Steve faltered. _Oh, hell._ He’d been recognized. That was the first time. He quickly looked around. No Kathy. Good. Just one autograph wouldn’t hurt, would it? He smiled and bent down closer to the woman. “And what’s your name, miss?”

“Peggy,” she smiled. Steve stopped and looked at her. She was grinning like a child who’d met their hero which, he supposed, she was. He plastered back on that fake smile and signed her book.

“Funny. I used to know a Peggy.”

“Did you, now? I bet she was beautiful.”

Steve smiled sadly as he whispered “Yeah, she was.” He turned away and cleared off the other table. He was too deep in thought to see Kathy standing in the doorway looking at him, that same curious expression in her eyes as the day they first met.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Clint sat in the control room watching the monitors intensely. The whole ‘invasion of privacy’ thing had gone out the window with the discovery that Parker was actually Spiderman. They now had cameras hooked up in the house, school and vantage points on the girlfriend, Gwen Stacey’s house. It had only taken them a week to set up the surveillance but it was made rather difficult by the snow which hadn’t stopped since the day before they followed him halfway round the city. Right now, he was laying on his bed checking his new wounds. A bad run-in with a group of petty thieves had left him with a fairly severe knife wound and an obvious concussion. Clint checked the time again. 1 AM. The plan was to approach him tonight. They couldn’t let him fall asleep, not with that concussion, and if he didn’t get proper medical treatment the stab wound could become infected or he might just bleed out.

“How’s he doing?” Bruce asked as he filtered into the room with the rest of the team in tow.

“He’s still awake,” Clint nodded. “But I’m worried about that knife wound. It looks pretty serious.”

“I have medical training,” Natasha supplied. “I can fix him up when we head in.”

“When exactly are we going to do that?” Tony prodded. Patience wasn’t really his strong suit.

He knew exactly when. They had agreed on a plan earlier in the week but it was set for two days from now. After Peter was attacked though, the plans changed. Peter was going to get himself killed if the rest of them didn’t step in. They’d hoped that Tony’s star status would get him a meeting with Parker about an internship at Stark Industries where he could talk to him privately about his extracurricular activities. With the events of the night they’d had to tweak their plans a bit. The new plan was to wait another hour and send in Natasha to help patch him up with Tony to talk him out of trying to fight his way past them. It seemed like a good enough plan considering it had been thrown together in about ten minutes.

“Tony, you can’t push him,” Bruce warned. “He probably doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

“I just wanna talk to the kid! Pick his brains a bit, figure out his powers…”

“No,” Bruce said sternly. Anyone would think the two of them were a married couple.

“Shit!” Clint cried. While they were arguing Peter had passed out. “Go! Go!” Clint yelled, shoving them towards the door. Bruce took up a spot next to Clint and watched Parker’s chest rise and fall like a lifeline.

 _He’ll be fine,_ Clint reassured himself, _we just need to wake him up._

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Tony lowered Natasha to the small flat of roof and touched down as quietly as was possible in the bulky Iron Man suit. He gave the command and the suit folded down into the red and yellow suitcase at his feet. Romanov gave him a face that said ‘could you make any more noise?’ and ducked into the window left unfastened when the injured teen returned. Tony filed in after her and took in the room. It was small and reminded Tony of his own room from his adolescence. You know, minus the playboy posters, that is. Mechanical and design diagrams hung from the corkboard in their place above the tech-laden desk. A small trail of blood ran from the window to the bed on which lay the boy hero. Tony’s brow instantly creased. Peter’s face was white and sweat-soaked, completely contrasting the vibrant crimson that was coating his abdomen and quickly staining to sheets. He looked so much worse off than the bad video footage had shown.

Romanov was already at his side putting pressure on the wound. Tony stood next to her looking the kid over. He looked so small to be mixed up in this dangerous game. He was skinny and lithe but with slight muscle, just enough to give him some bulk. His chest was littered with faded scars. One set in particular caught Tony’s eye; three long claw-like marks that stretched from the top of his left shoulder to the top of his right hip. _The Lizard…_

“Son of a bitch…” Tony mumbled. He stretched out his hand to brush the puckered skin. Peter’s eyes snapped open. A hand connected with the side of Tony’s face and he went flying against the wall. A foot swept under Romanov’s feet and the next thing she knew she was stuck to the floor with that Biocable stuff.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” Peter was inching closer to the window. Tony had to stop him.

“Ouch, Spidey! Am I really that forgettable?” Peter did a double take. He looked like he was about to ask something but then he looked down, saw what he was wearing, and cursed. “Nice to meet you, Pete.”

“What the hell do you want, Stark?” Peter was still backing away. He looked like a caged animal, eyes wild and chest heaving. Though that may have been the blood loss.

“Well, first I want you to calm down before you bleed to death. Romanov here was trying to patch you up when you glued her to the floor.”

“Yeah,” Natasha pipped up from her position on the carpet. “And how do I get out of this stuff?”

Peter settled roughly onto the edge of the bed, one hand still wrapped firmly around his stomach. Poor kid looked like he was about to pass out. He reached around to the bedside table and grabbed a needle and thread. Tony watched with interest as Peter bit into a balled up shirt and began messily stitching his own wound. His eyes kept flickering to the billionaire in the corner as he did, making sure he was still standing away from him. He hurriedly disinfected and bandaged the wound before collapsing back on the bed panting. Tony had to admit, he was impressed. He’d had Pepper or Rhodey do his stiches when he needed them. He couldn’t imagine having to do them himself.

“Damn, now that’s going to scar,” Natasha said, now standing and inspecting Peter’s handiwork. He jumped back to his feet, fists at the ready. She held up her hands and backed up to stand next to Stark. “If you’d just let me do it…”

“I don’t need your help!”

“Right,” Tony scoffed. “But we wanted to ask if you-“

“No.”

“But you don’t even know what we’re-“

“I said no! Leave me alone!”

Tony took a step forward. Peter threw himself out the window. “Great,” he mumbled.

The speaker in his ear burst into life. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO PUSH HIM!”

 

 


	6. Family Dinners are Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathy gets a clue, Peter camps out, Loki's a dick and Clint gets busted.

Tony stood staring out the window, watching as flakes of snow gathered on the paned glass walls of Stark Tower. Peter had figured that there’d been cameras in his house and chosen to avoid it completely. He hadn’t shown up at Stacey’s house either. _Smart kid,_ Tony thought. He wished the Cap was here. Steve was the diplomatic one. He was the one who was good at talking to people. He could have convinced Spiderman to let them help. All Tony managed was to lose the target completely.

Tony shook himself. Peter wasn’t a target, he was a kid. God, Fury was starting to get to him. He couldn’t let himself think like that. Cap wouldn’t think like that.

Tony just wished that he was here…

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Steve was taking the order of some young newlyweds, trying not to mess up their meals due to the incredibly distracting feeling of five sets of aged, star-struck eyes boring into his back. Peggy, the lovely woman from the other day who’d asked for his autograph, had gone and told all her friends about Steve and now they came practically every day to drink tea and watch him. It was sweet if not a little disturbing.

The couple were staring at Steve worriedly and he realised that he’d finished taking their orders a few minutes ago and had just been standing there.

“Uh, thank you and it’ll be out in just a few minutes,” he stuttered in embarrassment as he retreated to the kitchen. The gathering of women giggled and made comments about Steve being ‘handsomely bashful’. He clapped a hand over his face to hide his rising blush and wished for the millionth time that his hearing wasn’t so good.

“Steve,” he turned to see Kathy standing in the doorway with her ‘no nonsense’ face on. _Uh-oh._ “Can I talk to you for a minute?” The captain took a resigned breath and followed his manager into the back office. As soon as he closed the door she turned on him. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” he asked defensively.

“I’m not an idiot. I can google.”

“What’s google?” His brow furrowed. He may have lived in this century for over a year but he still wasn’t quite caught up. Kathy threw her hands up in frustration.

“That you’re Captain freaking America!” she nearly yelled. Steve cringed at her language but turned his eyes to the floor in acquiescence. He knew she was going to find out sooner or later but he just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. He still needed to think about things before she kicked him out.

“Kathy, I-“

“I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner! My mom idolizes you! You’ve been all over the news for months because-“ She stopped and turned wide understanding eyes on him. “Because you’re missing…Steve, you have to go back!”

“No! Kathy, I can’t.”

“But everyone’s looking for you! Tony Stark put out a reward for information about you! They’re all-“

“They don’t care about _me_ Kathy! They care that I could be out destroying cities or-or selling state secrets!” Kathy was just staring at him now, her face somewhere between pitying and understanding. “I can’t go back. Not yet.”

“Steve… That’s not the reason.” Now Steve was the confused one. “You were running. It’s time you told me what from.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Peter sat in the park closest Gwen’s house, back to a tree and arms pulled tight around his torso. He sat with his eyes closed as the flakes of snow fell heavily against his pallid skin. He’d rung Aunt May and told her that he was staying at a friend’s place for a few days while school was cancelled due to the snow but really he’d been taking shelter in whatever crack, crevice or abandoned building he could get out of the weather in. He’d only been gone a few days but he was already cursing Iron Man by every god he could think of (some of which, recently confirmed real). All he wanted was to keep the streets clean, the people safe and stay out of their way. The Avengers were big fish in the little pond of the Isle of Manhattan. Peter was a little fish in a proportionate pond and, if we follow the fish analogy, big fish eats little fish. Peter really didn’t want to be eaten. Catching their attention was potentially the worst thing that could have possibly happened. There were only two things that the Avengers and SHIELD could possibly want from him. The first was to take a vigilante that isn’t under their control out of the picture which is where the fish thing comes in. Not an option that Peter wanted to consider. The second was to recruit him into the Avengers thereby putting him under their control and upgrading his level of enemies from burglars and drugs dealers to world-threatening space aliens and evil geniuses. Yeah, not liking the odds of that one either.

Peter had been one of the little people before all this and he knew exactly what it felt like to be looked down on by everyone. The Avengers didn’t understand that. Or at least, Tony Stark didn’t. Billionaire’s son and world renowned playboy? He probably didn’t think twice about the people hurt during their recent escapade with the Chitauri. Peter had lost friends in that fight, good friends.

He thought about Wade for the first time in a long time. He was Peter’s best friend, if ‘friend’ was the right word. He was the only one besides Gwen who’d taken a real interest in Peter. Despite his inability to shut the hell up, Peter wouldn’t have traded him for anyone. He was part of the reason he and Gwen had gotten together. Wade was the one who told Gwen what Peter had done to Flash in… mostly true words. He exaggerated a bit on the ‘awesomeness of Peter’(his words).

But Wade was gone. In the fighting one of the Chitauri bike things had fallen through the roof of the building and hit Wade. He always was an unlucky son of gun. He was still alive when they took him to the hospital and he was after the surgery as well but he disappeared from his bed a few days later. The doctors told his parents that he wouldn’t survive long without proper treatment and life support. After two weeks with no sign the doctors said there was no chance so his parents had him declared dead. He was Peter’s only friend and they wrote him off just like that. Peter angrily threw this head back against the tree.

Stark had no idea what it was like for everyone else.

Peter was responsible for the little people, the ones that the Avengers (he almost spat at the name) knew nothing about and cared nothing for. They were his job and he couldn’t watch out for them with SHIELD’s pawns breathing down his neck.

Peter shifted and cringed. The knife wound was healing much slower than his other wounds had. He vaguely considered that maybe he should have let Black Widow patch him up. Peter snapped upright. He bit back a yelp of pain and shook the thought from his head. If he did that, they could get too close and try to take him out or take some of his blood so that they could try and figure out what made him tick. Though, worrying about that last one was probably a lost cause; he’d left more than enough blood for their tests all over his room. What had happened had happened, Peter decided. All that was left for him to do was to stay out of their sights and hope the heat died down. _Yeah, right,_ he thought bitterly.

The sound of crunching snow made his head whip upward. Gwen stood a few feet away with his huge duffle slung over her shoulder. When she saw him slumped against the tree half buried in snow she ran over to him and threw her hands around his neck.

“Peter, oh my god, you look awful!” She pulled back and saw the pained expression on his face. Her hand connected with his face before he even saw her raise it. He looked at her, stunned, as she yelled, “You idiot! You got yourself hurt again!”

He relaxed and smiled wearily at her. “Just some bum with a knife,” he shrugged. “No big deal.”

“No big-!” She hit him again but this time he just chuckled.

“Did you bring the stuff?” he asked through his laughter, clutching his injured side. Gwen glared at him but picked up the bag and opened it. Inside were several pairs of his warm clothes, a sleeping bag and a few days’ worth of food. Peter had sent Gwen to his house to fetch the clothes under the guise of gathering Peter’s clothes for his sleepover at a friend’s and told her to take the money in his wallet to buy some food. He thanked her and pulled on the thick winter parker, instantly feeling better in the shelter of the down feathers. Gwen was frowning at him again but he could barely bring himself to notice. He heaved himself to his feet and she wrapped her arms around him again.

“When can you come home?” she asked, fear ladening her usually light cheerful tones. Peter didn’t say anything. He didn’t know. What was the point of false assurances? Hadn’t she had enough of those from her father? She pulled back from him and looked him in the eye. Hers were filled with tears. “Make it soon, okay?” Peter dipped his head in a half nod, an unsure affirmation. She quickly pressed her lips to his before turning and disappearing into the snowfall. Peter watched her until she was out of sight and then turned to head off.

An indignant yowl pulled his eyes down. Kit stood in the snow, his fur dotted with white like the day he’d found him. He stared up at Peter with a look that said ‘ _You, human, why am I down here in the cold? Do something useful!’_ The thought almost made Peter smile but he was much too cold and exhausted for that.

“There you are,” he said. “I thought you’d gone off again.” Kit had somehow managed to find Peter wherever he went since they found him and he had decided to just stop questioning it because he was thankful for the company. Kit had a habit of disappearing for hours or days at a time but so did Peter so he couldn’t really fault the feline. Kit scoffed again and swiped at Peter’s leg, demanding to be lifted from the snow. Peter smiled and did as (rudely) requested, lifting the cat over his head and placing him in the hood of the newly donned parker. “It’s warmer in there,” Peter said by way of explanation at the surprised meow from near his ear. Peter shook his head when he realised he was explaining himself to a cat and started walking.

He had to find somewhere to settle for the night before the snow picked up.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

The Great Hall of Asgard was filled to bursting again but this time the reason was of a more morbid nature. The crowds sat and drank but no laughter was to be found today. Wine filled cups and tears filled eyes as all stared at the table in the centre of the room that held on it the still form of Balder Odinson. Sadness radiated from every god but none was more distraught than Frigga who sat at the side of her son weeping openly on his stiffening hand for his loss. She cursed herself for her ignorance, screamed out against her son for paining her. The mistletoe, a fragile and brittle plant, could not be used for anything to see her son harm and so had escaped her attentions while she gathered her promises. Such a simple mistake and this is the payment for her blunders.

“It is too much,” she wept. “The price is too great.” The All Father wrapped his hand around his wife’s shaking arm in comfort.

“It is a greater price than any mother should be asked to pay but still it must be paid.” It was not so much a comfort as it was salt to the wounds. Thor frowned at his father’s back from his chair by the wall. He only did his duty, upholding the laws and making examples of those who had failed him. At this moment, his wife was the one who had failed. Their relationship made it doubly important that she receive punishment for her failure for if a king cannot control his own family then how can he be expected to control a kingdom? The betrayal of Loki was still too fresh in the peoples’ minds for him to go easy on Frigga though it still hurt Thor to see his mother treated so severely.

A tutting sound drew the attention of the room to the far corner. “Father, that was a bit harsh, was it not?” Loki stood leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed across his chest and an evil smirk splitting his childlike face. “Where is your sympathy for our poor lost Balder?”

“You are not wanted here, murderer!” Thor shouted, springing to his feet, snatching Mjolnir from its place by his side.

“Why, dear brother, you don’t look very pleased to see me.” The trickster sounded almost disappointed and then that grin was back three fold. “I’m sure Jane would be more courteous…” It took all of Thor’s strength (and a restraining hand from his father) not to throw himself across the room and beat his brother within an inch of his life.

“Why are you here, Laufeyson?” Odin boomed across the hall. Loki looked genuinely hurt for a moment, raising a hand to his chest dramatically.

“You wound me, father. I thought I was Odinson.” Loki sounded upset, he looked it, but Thor couldn’t believe it. The last time he had seen him, Loki literally screamed that Thor was not his brother. He believed himself to be apart from the family that raised him, that cared for him. Loki would not be upset by being called Laufeyson.

“None who kills their own blood has the right to call himself my son.” Odin’s voice shook lightly, a slight wetness forming in his eye. All the remaining gods sat and watched the scene unfold before them, eyes roaming between the broken family and the obviously deranged Frost Giant. Thor hated the looks on their faces, like they were waiting for some sort of performance.

“Well, that is unfortunate…” Loki strolled forward to the edge of the horseshoe of tables, turning his head on its side and rolling his eyes to Thor. “…because I would never approach my _brother’s_ woman.” The words held malice and Loki’s eyes shone with murderous mischief. Thor went rigid at the threat.

“You dare touch her-!” he snarled only to be silenced by his father. Odin stood straight-backed, an unmistakable gleam of sadness and resignation in his eye. Thor wondered what his father was seeing that he did not.

“Loki, I bid you leave before you do something which we cannot forgive,” Odin warned, posture stiff and face stony.

“He has already done it!” Frigga shouted, jumping to her feet, jabbing an accusing finger at the trickster. “He has killed my child! Our child…” She turned to Odin. “Please… don’t let him get away with this!” she sobbed weakly.

“But, mother,” Loki smiled. “I already have.” He ripped the sheet from Balder’s body, displaying the ragged hole in his chest and blood-stained clothes that adorned his form. The crowd around them gasped. Frigga screamed and collapsed to her knees as if physically pained by the sight. She sobbed and clutched herself as Loki laughed, kicking over one of the tables, startling the gods that sat about it. Thor would take no more of this. He threw his hammer with a cry, putting his whole body into the motion. The trickster laughed and the hammer passed right threw him as he disappeared from the chamber. Mjolnir crashed through the wall at the end of the hall and disappeared out the other side. The occupants of the chamber fell silent save the sobbing Frigga and Thor’s angry, ragged breathing. Odin laid a hand gently on his son’s shoulder once more.

“We must speak.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Clint sat in the control room alone. It was a little past three in the morning and even the science geniuses had turned in by now but you know what they say about early birds and worms. The room was dark save for the glow of the monitors from which Clint couldn’t tear his eyes. He’d been in here every day since the night they’d lost Peter. He couldn’t help it. He watched the same fifteen minutes of footage again and again, the footage of Peter before he dived for the window. He looked trapped, frightened. Barton knew that look. It was the same look he’d had when Fury cornered him in a house surrounded by the bodies of the men he’d just shot dead in revenge. It was a fear of being caught but knowing that you had nowhere else to go, that where you were standing was what you had and it was about to be taken from you. He never wanted the kid to feel that way. It just wasn’t right.

Peter reminded Clint so much of himself that it scared him; lost and afraid and, because of them, driven from his home.

Barton’s resolve hardened as he stared at the picture of Peter standing, bleeding, in his own disguise. He didn’t want Peter to have to hide and to have no one like he did _. And_ , he decided, _I can’t just sit here while he’s wandering around bleeding to death._ He hauled himself out of his chair and spun around. He froze before he moved more than an inch toward the door.

“Looks like you’ve been keeping secrets, Barton.”


	7. Cops and Robbers and Superheroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to run, Thing 1 and Thing 2 aren't very fond of spiders, Tony isn't a tactician and a few old friends find their way back to New York.

“Steve, wait! Don’t go!” Kathy ran out of the back room of the office after the super soldier turned waiter. The captain’s back was stiff and ridged as he turned to face her. His expression was grim.

“Why not? That’s exactly what you want, isn’t it? For me to leave?” Steve’s voice was dead and every word cut into Kathy like a knife.

“I want you to go back. But that’s not what you’re doing! You’re running away again!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Go back and tell Stark that it’s my fault that…” Steve’s voice broke, his posture faltered as water filled his eyes. He turned away, shoulders squared. “I can’t do that, Kathy. I just can’t.”

“Steve.” Kathy tried her best to make her voice understanding as she laid a comforting hand on his arm. “You’ll have to go back eventually. They need you. In case you haven’t noticed, tactics isn’t exactly their strong suit. Stark’s likely to fly in with a half-assed plan and get himself killed.” Steve gave a light chuckle, knowing how true that was. _Like father like son,_ he thought. “Besides, he probably already knows.” Steve went ridged again, turning white-faced to Kathy. “Steve, these are the Stark’s we’re talking about. They know everything about everyone.” The captain gave a reluctant sigh.

“You’re right. Of course you are. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Every time I look at him all I can think about is how it’s my fault. It’s _all_ my fault…”

“ _No it isn’t!_ ” Kathy exploded. “The report said technical error, that’s what you told me.”

“But he was there because of _me_!”

“And _you_ were there because of _him_! So whose fault is it?” Steve’s eyes dropped to the floor, his bag hanging loosely from his fingers. Kathy reached out and took it from him. “You can’t keep running from this. You have a responsibility.”

“To who?” he scoffed.

“To Tony.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Peter was already swinging through the streets on his way to the robbery when the cops finally picked up their game and got new of stick up. His side throbbed every time he threw himself from one building to the next but he didn’t have time to complain. It was only a small job; a couple of armed thugs in a jewellery store. _I’ve handled bigger,_ he thought. An image of the Lizard sprang unbidden to his mind. The scars across his torso tingled. _Much bigger._

Peter dropped to the sidewalk outside the jewellers and, in one fluid motion, threw himself through the front window, rolling and coming to a stop in his signature crouch.

“Hi boys,” he mocked. “Little early for Christmas shopping, isn’t it?” In seconds Spiderman had the scene surveyed; two men with semi-automatics cleaning out the cases and a third with a handgun keeping the three hostages and the shopkeeper on the ground.

Thing 1 yelled, “Aw, shit man! It’s Spiderman!”

Peter clapped a hand over his mask-clad lips. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Thing 2 raised his gun to fire. “Ah, ah, ah,” Peter tutted, flicking his wrist. His web wrapped around the barrel of the semi-automatic, ripping it from the robber’s hand. “You shouldn’t play with guns, you know.” Peter jumped from his spot and summersaulted in the air to land perfectly on the handgun wielding thief. The man lost his balance and tumbled forward. The gun went off as he hit the ground, shattering one of the cases by the other robbers, startling Thing 1 into dropping his gun. Peter jumped up from the fallen robber, hurriedly webbing his hands and feet to the floor. He whipped back around to the other two.

Peter’s eyes widened invisibly under his mask. Thing 2 held the shopkeeper by the throat, a piece of jagged glass from the display case held against his jugular. The jeweller wept in terror and the robber, his eyes visible through the ski mask he wore, looked a strange mixture of crazed, terrified and determined.

“Come any closer and I’ll slit his throat!”

Peter held his hands up in acquiescence. “Why don’t you just put the guy down. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

“He’s got _everything_ to do with this!” The robber backed up a few feet toward the rear door. “He’s my ticket out of here.”

“Jack, what about me?!” Thing 1 was still back against the other wall, hands up, eyes frightened.

“Shut up, Redd!” Jack backed up further.

“Now, why don’t we all just calm down and-“ Peter snapped his wrist forward, web shooting out. Before Jack could react, the hand holding the knife was webbed to the wall by his head. He dropped the shopkeeper in surprise. Peter flicked his wrist a half-dozen times more and Jack couldn’t move even if he wanted to. The thief was shouting profanities at him as he turned around-

-to see Redd holding his retrieved gun and running for the door. Peter was about to sprint after him when the whoosh of an arrow out the door halted him. Peter sighed when he heard the projectile explode and the cry of the escaping robber. He stuck his head through the shattered window to see Redd trapped under a net that was pegged to the ground. Behind him he heard the light touch of a skilled assassin landing on the pavement followed by the not-so-light clunk of gold-titanium alloy boots.

“What are you doing here?” Peter spat as he walked back inside to help the newly released hostages to their feet. One of them ran from him but the other two thanked him and shook his hand before running outside to the arriving police.

Peter snapped ramrod straight. _Damn it! Police!_ He had to get away. They would arrest him. Peter started toward the back door Jack was heading to before.

“Relax, Spidey. Romanov’s outside making sure they don’t come in till we’re done talking,” Stark smirked. Peter scowled under his mask. He wished Stark would just leave him alone.

“Look, kid. You don’t have to run from us.” Peter scoffed at Hawkeyes reassurances. “You don’t even have to join the Avengers.” Peter noticed the look Stark shot Barton. Clearly there’s a disagreement on that front. “All we want is to make sure you don’t get yourself or other people hurt.”

“You mean you wanna stick a collar around my neck and keep me from doing my job!”

“No way, bug boy.” Peter’s eyes narrowed. “We just want to make sure there aren’t any more incidents like Oscorp Tower.”

“And how do you propose you do that?” Peter asked through gritted teeth. Whatever these guys were selling, he wasn’t buying it. Barton shifted and tightened his grip on his bow. He knew Peter wasn’t liking this conversation.

“We wanna train you, help you. You know, we scratch your back, you scratch ours sort of deal,” Stark proposed, gesturing vaguely with a red and gold clad hand.

“Listen here, bucket head,” Peter spat, jabbing a finger at Iron Man. Stark stepped back in surprise. “I’m the only one who’s helping the people in this town, this city, and I’m not abandoning them just because the big six are afraid they can’t control some kid in a mask. So, stay away from me and let me do my job!” Peter jumped to the roof, putting his fist through the skylight.

“You don’t understand!” Barton shouted.

Peter looked back down at the assassin. His face was filed with concern. And anger. “Oh, I understand perfectly.” Spiderman scuttled out the shattered skylight, leaving the Avengers to deal with the criminals.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Back at Stark Tower, Tony was walking the length of the conference table over and over while the other members sat and watched. Again. By now the Avengers were more than aware that Tony was a master brooder. He was always brooding about something; Cap being gone, not having found Spiderman, Pepper taking his suit away so he would sleep or eat, his general hatred of everything that didn’t go his way. The list was ever growing.

But something the team wasn’t used to was Clint being the same way. Usually he was making jabs at Stark’s poor mood but today he sat and shared in the darkening atmosphere. Natasha could have sworn she would be able to stick a card between the wrinkles in his brow. Something was bothering the assassin more than his partner had ever seen. He hadn’t been this closed off since they’d met some twenty-one years ago. Clint had only been young, maybe twelve when Fury brought him in. Natasha remembered she was in the firing range practicing with the glock 17 she’d been given for her birthday.

Fury led him into the room with a firm hand at his back and one look at the boy had told her everything she needed to know. He was small for his age and his clothes, dirty and ragged, swam on him. His tattered baseball shirt still had bloodstains on it. He stared ahead without seeing, his grey eyes glazed. Only one word came to mind when she thought of it now.

Dead.

They had been assigned as partners and Fury had brought him to train. Natasha had given him a fierce and sceptical look, told him she would start right away and herded him out of the room. The instant Fury left Clint’s legs gave out. He collapsed to the floor and sobbed bitterly. He was inconsolable. Natasha looked at him. She saw the tears and the clothes and the thin arms and legs and suddenly she was overcome with pity because then she saw it. He was there because of the same reason she was; because they were broken.

She drew herself up next to him until she towered over the cowering figure. Her face hardened as she lifted her arm up above her head. It came down with a whack, almost knocking Clint over. He looked up at her through his teary eyes, a hand held to his reddening cheek. Natasha put her hands to her hips as she looked down at him and, in a voice ringing with metal, she said “Men don’t cry.” He stared at her for a moment, eyes flicking over her features. He must have found what he was looking for because his face closed, the sorrow left his eyes and the pain left his face. Then they started training.

They’d been together ever since then. It had taken a while for her to get him to open up again, he didn’t say anything other and ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for almost five months since they brought him and it took him over four years to lean to smile again. But he’d been happy since then, he’d found purpose. It didn’t make sense for him to be this way again. He was helping people. He’d told her that was his purpose.

She wondered again what had happened to make him turn back into this brooding, lost person that sat across from her. There was something there, something she was missing.

“Okay, so…” Stark’s voice cut through her riviere and pulled the attention of everyone in the room. Save Barton. “He thinks we’re not doing anything to help the city.”

“Which is true,” Bruce added from his position near the head of the table. “We mainly take on bigger issues. Peter’s tackling robbers and thugs. He’s made more arrests in the last month than NYPD has in the last year. Spiderman has taken ‘stand up for the little man’ to a whole new level.”

“So, if we prove him wrong maybe he’ll join us! Save a few kittens, fight a few fires. How hard could it be?”

“Parker’s not an idiot, tin head.” Natasha almost jumped out of her skin when Clint spoke. She’d started thinking of him as that quiet little boy again. “Don’t you think he’ll realise you’re just trying to play him?”

“Clint’s right, Stark,” Natasha nodded. “Got any other ideas?”

“What am I, a tactician?” Poor choice of words. The conference room fell into heavy silence, all eyes at the empty chair next to Bruce. They really needed their captain back.

“Sir,” Jarvis’ voice called through the intercom, breaking the silent sorrow of the room’s inhabitants. “There is an urgent matter that requires your attention.”

“Not now, Jarvis.” Stark squeezed the bridge of his nose and waved away the invisible assistant.

“Sir, I don’t believe this matter should be ignored,” he persisted.

Stark threw his head back and let out a world-weary sigh. “What?”

In front of the conference table a screen appeared and on its face was a tornado pulling down toward the ground, lightning flashing around its edges and getting lower and lower to the ground.

“The Bifrost is open, sir.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

New York stretched down below over hundreds of square miles, millions of people ambling about along their roads doing nothing with their lives. Buildings lay in ruins, homeless walked the street, purse snatchers and muggers corner women in dark alleyways, Godzilla attacks a science company, aliens fall out of the sky…

“Ah, home sweet home,” Wade smiled from his position on the roof of an apartment building. It’d been a long time since he’d been back in New York, almost 3 months. Wow, it seemed so much longer. He’d missed the smell of the sewerage and the exhaust fumes and the greasy street stand food.

_Yeesh, this place is a dump…_

“Aw, don’t say that. Can’t you just feel the homecoming party!”

_No, I think that’s the dog on your ankle._

Wade looked down at the little runt. He pulled himself to his feet, the pit bull still growling and biting into his skin. He turned his back to the edge and bent down, reaching between his legs and grabbing the dog around the middle. “321! 321! Hut! Hut! Hike!” He threw the dog backward over the edge of the building, its teeth ripping out a portion of his ankle along the way. He heard a scream when the dog crashed into a lady reading some crappy romance on the bench below. Wade flinched. “Oooh, that’s gunna leave a mark.”

_Why are we here, anyway?_

“’Cause I wanted to see how the old hunting grounds were doing.”

_Hunting grounds? The only thing you used to hunt was Petey’s homework, you idiot._

“Oh, Peter! I missed Peter. Let’s go see Peter!”

_He won’t even recognise you, moron! Do I have to do all the thinking around here?_

“Well, you are my brain.”

_Fair call. But what makes you think he’s even gunna talk to you? You’re Deadpool now, not Wade Wilson._

“But Petey always had a habit of getting into trouble. I just wanna check up on him! Come on, please? I’ll buy us candy!

_Yes! Wait, no. I don’t even like candy!_

“Aww, but-!” Wade’s sentence was cut off by the clap of thunder. He turned to side, looking out at the vortex of clouds lowering itself to the earth, swirling up the falling snow. Wade stared at it until it clicked in his mind. It was coming down next to Midtown Science. “Peter…”

For once the two half’s of Wade’s personality agreed on something.

“ _We’re going.”_


	8. Old Friends, New Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve isn't overly fond of the cold, Tony's a bad actor and Wade's an arsehole.

Kathy pulled herself out of her chair in the office with a groan that morning. She played soccer in high school and one unfortunate game had ruined her hopes of a professional career. Her hip had dislocated and they’d never gotten it back in the right place. It left her with severe joint pains when she missed an appointment with her physio. The cold was doing a number on it too. Her hip ached at the movement.

She looked out the window to the side of the building. The temperature had been dropping rapidly over the last few weeks but today, today there was snow. Kathy frowned at the quickly building white blanket outside. It was still early October. _Weird,_ she thought.

She shrugged, pulling her mind of the anomalous weather back to the day ahead. She stretched her arms above her head, wincing at the pain in her hip, and moved out to the front of the café, still tying her apron around her waist when she reached the counter. Her eyes roamed the store. The weather was making for slow business. 9AM and only five people sat at the tables, three of which were part of Steve’s fan club. Kathy smiled at the elderly women, waving politely. They were so smitten.

 _Speaking of Steve…_ Kathy looked around the floor until her eyes caught on the enormous shoulders of the superhero-turned-waiter.

After their last little argument, Steve had asked for a few days to think about going back. Kathy knew what that meant. Steve was avoiding the answer. He knew that she was right, that he couldn’t avoid going back to New York. He had responsibilities there and, as much as he didn’t think it, he had friends there as well. His team would never give up looking for him because they cared for him, not because they wanted to control him.

Eventually, he would have to stop running.

Kathy sighed, knowing that Steve was going to need more than just a push in the right direction. _I’d have to strap him to a train to get him there._

A man at the far end of the café got up to leave. “Steve, can you clear that?” she asked. He didn’t respond. He didn’t even turn. Steve stayed exactly where he was, staring out the window at the snow, his back ramrod straight. Kathy moved out from behind the counter and crossed the room. She moved around to his side, looking up at his face. His jaw was clenched shut and his wide eyes were glazed. He held the tray between his hands, squeezing so hard his fingers left indents in the metal. “Steve?” she tried again, placing a hand on his arm. His cold skin scorched her fingers.

Steve’s eyes snapped down to her and he took a shaky breath, forcibly relaxing his hands. His skin was pallid and his shoulders still stiff.

“Sorry, Kathy,” he croaked, voice thick. “I don’t think I can work today.”  Steve pulled his apron off, handing it to her and rushing for the door. He was gone before she could get a word in edgewise. What was the matter with him? She rubbed the tips of her fingers against the heel of her palm, trying to warm the still cool digits. _So cold…_

One of the women at the table tutted, shaking her head. “Poor man. My boy was the same when he came home.”

“What do you mean?” Kathy asked. The woman looked up at her with gentle brown eyes. Through the weathered features, Kathy could tell she had been beautiful in her youth. Her grey hair was cut to the shoulders and curled in at the bottoms to hug just below her ears, parting left of the middle of her forehead with a portion coming down to rest above her eye. The curves of her face were gentle and her lips a perfect cupids bow. She reminded Kathy of her late grandmother, the last family she had.

“My dear,” the woman answered. “Captain Rogers was a soldier if ever there were one and if there’s one thing I know about soldiers, it’s that they’re never the same when they come back to you. Especially when something reminds them of what they’ve been through.” She smiled sadly, her gaze far away.

Kathy’s brow furrowed further. “But there’s nothing remotely warlike here!” She spread her arms, indicating the quiet cafe to emphasise her point.

“Oh my,” the woman raised a hand to her cheek. “You don’t know how they found him, do you?”

**~AVENGERS~**

School was still out because of the snow but the school council was still running. Peter knew that they had a meeting every Wednesday to talk about the current issues and events. He also knew that Gwen was the head of the school council and would never miss a meeting. Just because Stark and his boy band friends had managed to uproot his life didn’t mean he was going to give up without a fight and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let Gwen walk home by herself in this weather. Hell, she may not even have to walk.

Peter grinned at the thought of flying over the city with Gwen again. It had been days since he’d last seen her and days more since he got to go out with her. God, he just wanted to curl up with her and watch a movie like they used to.

He couldn’t even text her goodnight. She’s probably barely even slept since he’d gone AWOL. Stark had probably been tracing his phone to try and find him. Peter had ditched it the minute he started running.

If the Avengers were determined to catch him then Peter had no doubt that it was just a matter of time. He didn’t have the resources to stay away from them for long. But there was no way in hell he was going down easy. He would do everything in his power to make this a task that wasn’t worth the trouble; no phones, no Gwen, no home, no school (not that he minded), no Aunt May. The only thing that signals his location is Spiderman and he wouldn’t give that up if it killed him which, someday, it just might.

Peter forced his thoughts from the Avengers and their crusade to bring him in as he trudged through the snow a few blocks away from Midtown Science. He checked his watch. Gwen should be done by the time he got there. Why were they even bothering to have student council meetings anyway? No one was at school. What was there to talk about? Maybe it’s just an excuse to get _some_ kids to come in…

Peter heard booming thunder overhead and twisted his neck. Just before he’d lifted his face high enough to see the sky he stopped himself.

He didn’t look up. Six months spent watching the skies and he didn’t want to look up. Bad things happened when you looked up. An irrational terror gripped his stomach. There were bad things up, horrible things. He wouldn’t look up. The last time he looked up…

The thought petered out when he felt the warm lump in the hood pressed against his back.

 _The last time I looked up, I gained a friend,_ he reminded himself.

That was weird. Why had he been so scared? He didn’t normally look up but he wasn’t usually scared.

Peter decided it was better thought about later. He craned his head back. Off in the direction of the school, he saw it; the whirling vortex of clouds dropping out of nowhere, getting closer and closer to the ground. His eyes widened as he remembered the first time he saw it.

Kit lifted himself from the hood, looking over Peter’s shoulder to peer at the vortex. He started yowling, scratching at Peter’s neck.

 _Kit…_ Peter thought. He might finally get some answers about the strange little kitten.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

It took all of two minutes for the team to be suited up and out the door. Everyone rushed toward Midtown Science; Tony in his suit carrying Bruce, Clint across the rooftops and Natasha on her motorcycle. By the time they reached their destination, the tornado was just touching down and-

Spiderman was already there, watching with fascination as lightning seemed to strike down the eye of the tornado.

“What the hell are you doing here, kid?!” Clint yelled over the roar of the wind.

Peter’s mask-clad face turned to the team and, even through the fabric, you could see his scowl.

“Looking for answers,” he called in turn. The team all looked at each other, confused.

“Answers to what?”

Peter’s shoulders slumped forward and he looked at them like they just asked what colour the sky was. He pointed down to his feet and, as if that made any sense, there was a black cat sitting just behind his calf with what looked to be a permanent scowl affixed to its face. Clint didn’t even know cats _could_ scowl. Tony opened his mouth to question the relevance of the cat when another bang of thunder silenced the gathering.

All eyes turned to the tornado as the lightning dissipated and the clouds began to disperse. Everyone resumed a defensive stance, save Bruce who everyone crowded to shield. The Avengers knew Bruce didn’t like to transform unless it was necessary so, for all intents and purposes, they considered him defenceless. He hated that almost as much but he couldn’t really fault them.

In the middle of the whirling dust crouched a figure clad in silver and red, one knee and fist to the ground, head bowed. They watched as he rose to his feet and took in the welcoming party. A ridiculous smile split the god’s face.

“Friends!” he boomed. “You have come to welcome me back to Midgard?”

Everyone stared, dumbstruck, until Tony stepped forward. “Not who we were expecting but sure, Terminator! Mi casa es su casa.” Thor’s brow furrowed but the smile stayed on his lips.

“You speak very strangely, metal man, though I’ve come to expect this. Your words often make as little sense as the burbles of a babe in want of his mother’s teat.” Silence filled the street as the team stared at the god and the (amazingly) gobsmacked billionaire. Thor looked over the group, all baring the same slack jawed expression. “Have I spoken wrongly?”

Whooping laughter broke the quiet. They all turned to see Spiderman doubled over in hysteria, clutching his sides and howling in glee. At his feet the strange black kitten was lying on the ground with its paws over its head and its shoulders shaking in a manner incredibly close to Peter’s.

Tony glowered. “What’s so funny, webs?”

The teenager straightened, wiping an invisible tear from his mask. “Oh, man, you just got called a whinny little baby by the god of thunder. You can’t tell me that’s not hilarious!”

Thor looked Peter up and down, an eyebrow raised at the costume. “You know of me, spider child?”

Now Tony peeled into laughter. “Spider child! God, I’ll have to remember that one!”

Peter’s shoulders squared and his hands fisted. Clint took a cautious step toward Tony when Parker’s wrist twisted toward him.

“You might wanna knock it off, Stark,” Barton cautioned.

“What? You can take a joke, right, Petey?”

“You can take a fist, right, rusty?”

Thor stepped between the two of them, looking askance at Tony. “Is this child a new member of the group Avenger?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Tony and Peter glared at each other again. Peter no more wanted to be part of the Avengers than Tony wanted to be kidnapped by terrorists in Afghanistan. He saw it as the same thing; being a prisoner. But they both had the same outcome. Tony may have been in hell where he was but in the end it had given him Iron Man. Having shrapnel in his chest sucked, sure, but Iron Man had made him a better person. It had saved him. And that was what they wanted to do for Peter. The Avengers could help him, save him. He just had to see it as a gift rather than a death sentence. It had taken Tony four years to figure out what Afghanistan had given him, to look at it as something that helped not hindered. He hoped it didn’t take Peter that long.

The god looked to the group for help. None of them offered to step in. Natasha looked like she was enjoying the show, Bruce watched on, twisting his hands nervously, and Clint stood by Tony, the same grim faced expression he’d been wearing for the last week plastered onto his features.

Peter backed down first, stepping away. “Tche, what a waste of time…” He turned to leave. Kit caught a claw in his leg, letting out an irritated yowl. Peter looked down at the cat with a frown. “What’s with you?”

“What’s the matter, Petey? Cat got your leg?” Tony quipped. 

Thor frowned. “That is exactly the problem, Friend Stark. Has your vision worsened since last we met?”

“It’s a play on words, muscles,” Tony sighed.

“Then it was a short and unamusing performance.”

“What? No! Not a _play._ It’s a- You know what? Forget it. It’s not important. What is important is what’s eating Peter.” Tony pointed down to Kit who had his poor excuses for teeth buried in Peter’s ankle.

“Really, Tony?” Bruce groaned.

“Talk about weak,” Barton agreed. “But seriously, what’s with the cat?”

Peter was crouched down trying to extricate the feline. “How the hell should I know?”

“Well, it’s yours, isn’t it?”

“I found it,” Peter ground out as Kit bit in deeper.

Thor looked over the animal a small smile pulling at his lips. “Tis a feisty beast! It reminds me much of the remblan I had when I was a child.” The group stared at him with blank faces. “Remblan? This tall, fury, long tusks? No?” Bruce stared at Thor, mortified at the thought of a child playing with the waist-high creature that sounded suspiciously like a sabre-toothed tiger. Thor bent down to inspect the kitten. He glared at him with his blue eyes, a rumbling growl settling in the back of his throat. Thor reached out a hand. Kit let go of Peter in favour of hissing at the god. Thor pulled back, startled, a furrow settling in his brow. He leaned closer, squinting slightly as he stared at Kit. “You look like-“

“GOOOOD MORNING CAMPERS!” Heads snapped around to see a figure flying through the air, somersaulting, and crashing into a mound of snow across the park. He burst out from under the fresh white sleet, rolling into the middle of the strange circle of symbols that appeared after the tornado, moving his arms and legs to make a snow angel. “Ah, I love it when it snows!” The clack and whir of every weapon in the street training on him brought the new arrivals attention to the gathering. “Aw, is this any way to treat an old friend, Starky?”

Tony’s mask clunked closed. “No, but it’s the _perfect_ way to treat the guy who blew up my weapons factory.”

“But you said you weren’t making weapons anymore…” he pouted.

“THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO BLOW UP A MULTIMILLION DOLLAR FACTORY!”

Peter peered out from behind the Avengers (sans Banner and the Captain) who had jumped in front of him to pen in the new guy. “Who the heck is that?” he asked Romanov.

“Deadpool,” she answered, voice deadly calm. “The merc with a mouth. We’ve had business before.”

“What’s with the sudden artillery?”

“ _Never_ trust this guy,” she said forcefully. “He’s insane. And I mean that literally.”

“Ouch, Nat! I thought we were friends!” Deadpool whined.

“You stabbed me in the leg,” she ground out.

“To be fair, you cut off my arm first.”

“Because you pushed me off a building!”

“KIDS!” Tony interrupted. “Can we just kill this son of a bitch and go home?”

“Hey, my mother was lovely!”

“What’s this guy’s problem?” Peter mumbled, picking Kit up from out of the snow and dusting the irate kitten off.

“Shut up and go home, Petey,” Tony called over his shoulder.

“No argument from me…”

“Oh, yeah! Petey! We gotta find Petey! That’s why we’re here.” Everyone’s eyes flicked to the teenager they crowded. Peter tensed, his hidden eyes following the black and red figure walking circles in the middle of the clearing scratching his head. “I can’t remember… UGH! THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! Well, you know, it would, if I wasn’t already crazy…”

“Can’t remember what, screwball?” Barton spat.

“Where he lived, where to look for him, anything!” He scratched his head again and stopped his pacing. He stayed quiet for a minute, looking out at nothing, before throwing his arms into the air. “No, he won’t be at school, you idiot! It’s snowing! School’s closed when it’s snowing!” He stopped again. “Of course you’re the idiot! You can’t even remember where Peter lives!” Another pause. “Hey, good idea. We’ll check the phone book!” Deadpool turned to walk off. An arrow buried itself into the snow at his feet. “Oh… right…”

“This one is very strange,” Thor noted from his position in the circle, Mjolnir held at the ready. “Is he to join us also?”

“No.”

“Never.”

“Not a chance.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s this ‘also’?”

“You wound me, guys, really. Which is why it’s a good thing I heal fast. But listen,” Deadpool rambled, backing up slowly and unsheathing his katanas. “I’ve got a best friend who thinks I’m dead to find so…” He stopped with his back against the opposite wall.

“Sorry, Freddy, no backing out now,” Tony smirked beneath his mask, levelling his repulsor gauntlets at his chest.

“Who said anything about _backing_ out?” The mercenary crouched lower and broke into a dead sprint for the line of heroes in front of him. Tony, Clint and Natasha fired, all missing. Deadpool corrected his course and ran straight for Thor. The god brought his hammer up, slamming it straight into Deadpool’s stomach, the force of the impact sending him flying straight up and over the heads of the Avengers plus one. “Thanks for the lift, blondie!” The figure disappeared over the rooftops of the backing buildings.

Tony cursed and straightened his arms to go after him but Bruce put a hand on his shoulder.

“Just leave him. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you guys, I’ll be going too,” Peter said, turning to the wall of the building.

“Wait!” Clint called. “What about-“

“Sorry! Not my problem!” He yelled over his shoulder as he scuttled up the wall, Kit wrapped firmly around his neck, until he was gone from sight.

“Great. Now there’s two of them…” Romanov muttered.

“Will we not see the spider child at the Tower Stark?”

“You know, I’m really starting to hate this pipsqueak.”    

 


	9. The War to End All Wars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a plan, Clint gets an earfull, Kathy worries, a war is coming and Steve goes home.

The Elder Council raged and screamed at him from around the hall, their worried and aggrieved voices echoing off the ice crystal walls of the thingstead.  Councils were only held during times of war. One had not been held for over a thousand years but now that Odinson has come of age, they hold the second gathering in less than a decade. War was upon them yet again.

But today, the hostilities were not of their own making. The Frost Giants were governed by prophecy as much as any of the nine realms and one of the oldest in their history was coming to pass.

The Final War. The End of Days. Loki Laufeyson had killed Balder; he had begun his decent into madness. The trickster was the prophesised leader of the Frost Giant assault on Midgard. They were destined to bring the downfall of the petty human race.

But Laufey was tired. He was an old king, on the throne for three times that of his predecessors, and he knew better. The outcome of the war was not written. They had the same chance of a loss as a victory. The others were forgetting the Asgardians. The protectors of the worlds would hardly let them march on Earth without putting up a defence. Should Jotunheim be forced to stand against the army of Asgard, their loss was assured.

Odin would not let the treachery pass. A strenuous truce had been struck after Thor Odinson’s transgression; a peace that Laufey was not willing to threaten for the sake of a long dead man’s scribbles.

The others, however, were stuck in their ways. They read the prophecies as law, a certainty that couldn’t be avoided any more than breathing. They would have their war, with or without a king.

“We must ready the army!” Genfry, one of the youngest on the council, called. “There is too little time! The snow has been falling for more than twenty years. We must prepare immediately!”

“The time for preparations is at an end. We must dispatch the troops _now_ or risk the Midgardians rallying their heroes!” Murmurs spread around the table. The loss of the Chitauri had not gone unnoticed in Jotunheim. 

“It appears you are correct, honoured elder.” Silence fell over the hall, eyes turning in frozen heads to the source of the agreeance. In the doorway to the thingstead, clothed in identifiable black, green and gold, was the subject of their discussion. He wore a wise and all-knowing smile as he strode in, hands clasped behind his back. “Thor Odinson is learned in the prophecy and has returned to Earth. He intends to impart his knowledge on his friends so that they might defend their home.”

The silence shattered. Every voice in the room sought to have his opinion heard. Laufey sat quietly at the head of the table, his eyes on his stolen son. The trickster’s face twisted in a malicious grin as he watched the deliberations. His eyes drifted to the king, finding Laufey’s old, world-weary eyes on him. His expression fell back into the penetrating stare of a would-be king.

Laufey sighed heavily. He was no stranger to men with motives. He had been one himself, long ago, and, he supposed, it fit that his son would be one as well. He lifted his foot and slammed it down to the floor, a crack splitting the iced ground. Tongues stilled in heads as attention returned to the king.

“I am interested to hear what it is _you_ intend, outcast,” Laufey spoke, keeping his voice flat and without inflection. The council looked between father and son, curiously watching the exchange.

Loki smiled wickedly, lips pulling back over teeth. “Jormungandr.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

The snow was only getting heavier and it was getting harder and harder for Peter to find a decent place to sleep for the night. He refused to stay in the same place for more than three nights in a row, knowing that it would just make him easier to pin down. Tonight’s locale was an old abandoned warehouse on the edge of Brooklyn in the old navy yard. The holes in the tin roof made for a chilly evening but at least it was hidden and far away from Stark Tower.

Peter had made his home amongst the rafters, stringing himself a web hammock, filling the base with clothes to keep the breeze off his back and settling in with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He laid fully clothed, ski parka and all, with Kit nestled against his chest like the first night he’d met the annoying fur ball.

Peter smiled down at the wad of black fluff lying on its stomach with its head on its paws and that same grumpy expression on its face. He almost reminded Peter of a photo of his father he’d seen from when he was a kid. Peter had gone into his dad’s office and drawn all over some important papers with his crayons. His father was leaning against the desk with his arms folded and a look of fond exasperation on his face while a young Peter held up a drawing of their family to him. The photo was old and grainy but it was one of the few he had of his parents and he treasured it.

The memory of the old photograph tacked to the corkboard above his desk made him feel a little homesick. He hadn’t spoken to Aunt May in nearly two weeks because he’d had to ditch his phone. She must be getting worried by now. He was sure she’d tried to call him and gotten his voicemail. She had to be doubting the ‘I’m at a friend’s place’ excuse by now. Peter didn’t really have that many friends. She could check with all of them in about 10 minutes if she got really worried. He missed the heater in the lounge room and warm meals that weren’t bought at fast food places and street stands. He missed talking to Gwen; he missed holding her, kissing her. He missed only having to worry about avoiding the cops and angry street thugs. He missed his life.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears welling behind them. God, he was pathetic; Puny Parker crying because he misses his girlfriend. Flash would have a field day with this. A small sob forced itself from between his teeth.

He opened his eyes with a jolt when he felt a small, soft paw on his cheek. Kit looked down at him with his blue eyes wide. Peter stared at him for a moment. Kit’s eyes narrowed and he gave two short meows that Peter interpreted as ‘shut up’. Kit swiped at him and Peter gaped at the kitten, feeling warm blood bloom on his cool skin, as he settled himself back down on his chest. Peter couldn’t help the ridiculous smile that split his face. He gave a light chuckle and absently started stroking Kit’s spine.

_Maybe it isn’t all bad…_

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“That’s twice now, Barton, twice a _teenager_ slipped through your fingers.”

“I know, sir, but if you’ll let me-“

“I do not remember telling you to ‘observe’ him. I remember specifically saying _bring. Him. In._ ”

“But, sir-“

“That _is_ what I said, wasn’t it, Barton?”

“Yes, sir. But-“

“Well, did I stutter?”

“No, sir.”

“Then there is no reason why Spiderman shouldn’t be sitting in a cell, is that correct?”

“Sir-“

“ _Is that correct,_ Agent Barton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have one more chance. If you don’t bring him in, then you better hope I never see your face again. Is that understood?”

“Completely, sir…”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Kathy was starting to get worried. After Steve left, she tried to call him to make sure he was alright but he didn’t answer. The next morning he didn’t show up for work. Her mind kept drifting and she couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, she closed up shop early and went to check on him. She was standing out the front of his hotel room, her hand paused mid-knock.

She couldn’t get what the woman from the café had said out of her head.

_“Shellshock, dear. He’s got shellshock. The snow’s reminding him of when they pulled him out of the ice.”_

_Ice…_ He’d been frozen for almost seventy years. That meant it really was him. It had been a controversial topic after the Incident when SHIELD had been forced to reveal that Captain America was alive. Some people believed that the government was just misusing a dead soldier’s image; others believed whole heartedly that he was the real Captain America, but very few people knew for certain which was the truth.

The woman Kathy had been speaking to, Sandra was her name, used to work as Howard Stark’s secretary. She had been in the office when they brought in the enormous chunk of ice with the war hero inside. Stark senior had been leaping out of his skin with excitement. He’d told her about the Captain and all the great things he’d done; how he turned the tide of war. He’d loved to talk about the Captain. He spoke about him more than he did his own son.

Kathy knew enough about the adventures of Captain America to know that he and Stark senior had been close friends, close enough for what happened to make Steve run away from his duty. That was not something a soldier did lightly.

Kathy sighed and lowered her hand. Maybe she’d just pushed him too hard about going back to New York. Maybe he just wanted some more time to think about things. He was probably avoiding her because she kept pestering him about at least _calling_ his team so they knew he was alright. _But what could hurt Captain America?_

God, that was going to take some getting used to; quiet, awkward, little (huge) Steve was _the_ Captain America! The only thing that had even hinted at him being _that_ Steve Rogers was his terrible pop culture knowledge and almost archaically good manners. _And the muscles and the looks…_ She groaned. And she’d thought he was out of her league before…

What was she going to do? Kathy had been standing at his door, thinking about knocking, for almost a half hour. Maybe she should just leave and let him come back to the world in his own time. Was that a good idea? Steve was the type to think things through thoroughly but this was something he’d been thinking about for more than half a year and still hadn’t come to a decision. She didn’t think he’d been thinking about it at all, honestly. Kathy was pretty much convinced by now that Steve was doing everything in his power to _avoid_ thinking about it. That probably wasn’t why he’d locked himself up then.

Kathy shivered in the cold. The snow had been coming down harder and harder since it started.

“ _Shellshock, dear, he’s got shellshock.”_

Worry ate at Kathy’s insides as Sandra’s words repeated themselves inside her head. She bit at her fingernails, a bad habit she’d been trying to kick for years, when she remembered. She looked at her fingers, the ghost sensation of Steve’s icy skin flickering through her nerves. _Maybe he’s sick or something! Can super soldiers even get sick?_

Worry turned to panic as she lifted her hand for what had to be the fiftieth time that afternoon. She stared at the door again, doubt stilling her fist.

_“The snow’s reminding him of when they pulled him out of the ice.”_

_That’s it!_ Kathy brought her knuckles to the door and rapped three times on the wood. She waited for an answer but none came. She knocked again. _Maybe it’s me. Maybe he’s avoiding me._ She shook her head, determined to make sure Steve was alright. When silence answered, she tried calling to him.

“Steve? It’s Kathy. Are you there? Can we talk?” Kathy’s nerves began to fray when no response came. She was really worried now.

Kathy reached into her pocket and pulled out a multitool. You didn’t survive as a single woman running a business without being able to fix your own problems and growing up as an orphan had imparted its own wisdom. She pulled out the flathead screwdriver and pushed it into the lock. She gave it a strong, sharp turn, breaking the lock. Kathy looked around quickly, making sure she hadn’t been seen, before pocketing the tool and stepping inside.

“Steve?” she called, closing the door behind her. Kathy looked around the small space. It was your standard $20 a night hotel; a kitchenette to one side of the room on the wall opposite the TV and lounge with a small door leading to a bathroom off to the other. Her eyes trailed around the room, noting the near obsessive tidiness of it. _Once a soldier, always a solder,_ she thought. Her eyes roamed until they reached the far wall, against which was a slightly smaller than standard double bed.

“Steve!” Kathy cried, running over to it. The Captain lay under the blankets, still as a corpse. He could easily have been mistaken for one. His skin was grey and his lips tinged blue. Kathy reached out to his forehead. Steve’s skin was cold as ice. She stared going into a full blown panic as she pressed her fingers to his neck. She could feel a pulse there, a very weak one. “Oh my god. Steve! STEVE!” She shook his shoulders, slapped his face. She tried anything to get him to open his eyes but he just lay there, unmoving, unwaking.

Kathy didn’t know what to do. She was almost shaking with the fear that Steve could never wake up again, that he would never walk around her café, never take orders from the bashful women who’d met him in their youth, never look at her confusedly when she mentioned a TV show or movies that _everybody_ had seen but oh, no, not Steve. Kathy could feel the tears starting to run down her cheeks.

She had to call somebody, somebody who could help. She couldn’t call 911. They wouldn’t know what to do. Who _would_ know what to do with a genetically altered super soldier?

If there was a light bulb overhead, Kathy was sure it just clicked on.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

The lounge room of Stark Tower was enormous to a scale that only Anthony Edward Stark could dream up. It was roughly the size of a moderate middle class family home, occupying a third of the 87th floor of the Tower and housing enough seating for approximately one hundred and fifty people. Reclining. The floor of the room was carpeted in warm sea pearl and the walls were painted in a pure white. A collection of curved leather lounges were dispersed around the room in small clusters alternating black and white encircling glass coffee tables. To the far end of the room, backed on to a white wall on a raised platform, was an elegantly designed (and fully stocked) glass top bar looking out over the room. The east wall was made entirely of glass allowing for a breathtaking panoramic view of the Hudson River over the rooftops of Lower Manhattan. Against the west wall was a larger cluster of white sofas built into a small depression in the floor. The lounges all faced toward a huge flat screen television mounted to the wall, bordered on either side by surround sound speakers. The crescent of lounges siphoned off roughly twelve square metres of the room for what Tony called the ‘private lounge’.

Tony had led everyone to the small section the day after they had picked up their friend Thor in the middle of Midtown. The team was too frazzled after dealing with the mercenary to pay attention long enough for Thor to give them his ‘news of great import’.

Tony lounged across one of the couches, his feet up over the arm at one end and his head resting on the other. His eyes were shielded by dark sunglass. The entire world knew of Tony’s drinking habits and, in all likelihood, he was hung over again. Bruce squished himself to one end of the lounge closest to Tony’s head, trying to make himself as small as possible. The doctor was comfortable enough with the rest of the team to speak when he wanted to but avoiding people had become second nature after his accident and he still preferred to appear as unremarkable and unmenacing as possible. Romanov sat at the other end to Banner, her legs crossed elegantly in front of her, one arm resting on the back of the lounge. Her eyes kept flicking to the door and Bruce. Barton had yet to arrive. It wasn’t like him to be late for anything and she was starting to worry. She shifted in her seat, subconsciously moving an inch further away from Bruce. She had never really been comfortable with him again after what had happened on the helicarrier but she made an effort to appear unphased. Everyone knew her better than that. Thor took up an entire lounge on his own. Still dressed in his silver and red day-at-the-medieval-fair outfit, he looked every inch the god everyone knew he was. He sat up straight, arms folded across his broad chest, feet firmly planted on the carpet and wavy blonde hair settled just below the top of his shoulders. He was an imposing sight to say the least.

Tony huffed, dramatically throwing his legs around to the floor, moving to stand in the middle of the circle of lounges. “Merida’s taking too long. If it’s so important, we should just start already!”

Bruce sighed at his impatience but conceded his point. “It isn’t like Clint, that’s for sure. But Tony’s right. You came all the way from Asgard to tell us this, didn’t you?”

“I did. But should we not wait for the good Captain also?”

Tony gave a light frown, his features creasing in sadness. “The Cap won’t be joining us either, pal.”

Thor nodded, a look of understanding on his face. “Then I shall begin the telling. I’ve returned with knowledge of a new war that threatens this world.”

The room fell silent.

“W-what?”       

“You’re kidding me.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?!”

“You all were too lost in your own considerations. More talk would only serve to muddy your judgement and the words I have to share are too important to be lost in the torrent of thoughts already sweeping through your minds.” The team gaped at the god for a moment. Sometimes it was hard to look past the hair and the clothes to remember that the man sitting with them was the heir to the throne of Asgard.

“Well, we’re bright eyed and bushy tailed now, L’Oreal, so out with it.” Thor frowned and opened his mouth to speak but Tony held up a hand to silence him. “I should have known better,” he mumbled. “Just… start talking.”

The god’s frown deepened as he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped before him. “It is grave news I bring to you, friends. My brother has done something terrible…” The confusion collapsed into solemnity.

“I thought twinkle toes was locked up!” Tony whipped off his sunglasses to stare at him. Thor’s lips thinned. Tony started pacing, his eyes flicking none too subtly toward to bar across the room. “Well, where is he now?”

“I know not. He appears and disappears as he pleases, leaving death and mayhem in his wake,” Thor spat bitterly. Tony stopped pacing to look at him as he tried to calm himself. Bruce moved from his chair and placed a hand on the god’s shoulder. Even when Loki had attempted genocide, Thor still defended his brother. Something huge must be going down…

“What happened?” he asked gently.

Thor looked up at him, tears brimming in his normally hardened eyes. “My brother… Loki has slain my brother, Balder…”

“Oh my god…” Natasha gasped, straightening up.

“Jesus, Thor, I’m sorry,” Tony said sympathetically, freezing his pacing. Bruce didn’t say anything, just tightened his grip on Thor’s shoulder and cast his eyes to the floor.

“That’s terrible,” Natasha spoke up, her voice oddly strained. “But that’s not the big issue here.”

“Are you kidding me, Romanov? His brother was killed!” Tony was almost shouting, his arms flailing wildly.

“No, Man of Iron, Lady Romanov is right.” Natasha flinched at the nickname but nodded for Thor to continue. “Loki’s actions, while terrible, are the sign of something much worse to come. He has begun his decent into madness. Ragnarok is coming.”

“Ragnarok?” Bruce faltered, standing and taking up Tony’s pacing. “Shit…” The room fell into dead silence. Bruce swore almost as little as Steve.

“Ooookay,” Tony said, staring at Bruce. “And the word of the day means…?”

“The End of Days, Friend Stark. In seven years, your world will come to an end.”

“Seven years…” Tony blinked. “Seven years! I thought you said it was urgent!”

“Is this not a short a time?” Thor frowned, looking to Natasha who he classed as the voice of reason in the absence of the good Captain.

“Thor…” she started slowly. “How do you measure a year?”

The furrow in his brow deepened. “One passage of the sun across the sky.” The group gaped at him. “Is it not the same on Midgard?”

“THAT’S A DAY, THOR!” Tony exploded.

“Seven days…” Bruce started up his pacing again, his fist clenching and unclenching at his side.

“Well, that makes sense, then.” Natasha moved to gaze at the snow that was still piling up outside on the streets, snowploughs hurriedly trying to clear the roads while the sleet piled back up in their wake. “In mythology it says that in the time of Ragnarok it will snow for 30 years.” She turned back to the group, finding all eyes on her. “It started snowing 23 days ago.”

Thor smiled wearily. “You are well learned, Lady Romanov. Perhaps you could tell the Man of Iron and Friend Banner the remaining details?” There was a slightly pleading look in his eyes.

Natasha gave an apologetic half-smile. “Sorry, big guy, but I only studied it in school. I don’t remember half the things I learned.”

The god gave a sigh but, nonetheless, launched into his explanation of the events of the past few ‘years’; Loki’s escape from imprisonment, the murder of his brother and the performance he put up at Balder’s wake. The gathered heroes listened raptly to the recount, none interrupting. Even Tony stayed quiet long enough for Thor to tell the tale, only punctuating his speech with grunts of aggravation.

“Our last report claims he has returned to Jotunheim and entered into council with the Frost Giant Elders. The topic of their discussion, we are sure, is Ragnarok. But the specifics…” He shook his head. “The thingstead is too heavily fortified for Heimdahl to see their plans.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was,” Natasha said suspiciously, the spy in her demanding to have all the answers.

“We don’t,” Thor grumbled defensively. “That information was from two years… ‘days’… ago. Loki can move without detection. We have no way to be certain that he is still on Jotunheim, let alone in the thingstead.” Natasha nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I must know your plan, my friends. There is a battle coming for the scale of which you are ill prepared.”

“We need to figure out what their next move is.” Tony started tapping his foot, a hand to his chin in thought. “If muscles could get us to this Jotunheim place-“

“Sir,” the clipped British drawl of the AI broke into the tense room. “There is an urgent call awaiting you on line one.”

Stark groaned, his head thrown back in irritation. “Jarvis, you know I hate being interrupted!”

“Apologies, sir,” the voice replied, his voice inflectionless but still managing to sound annoyed.

“Reveal yourself, spirit!” Thor boomed, Mjolnir suddenly in hand, eyes on the roof.

Tony lowered Thor’s arm. “Calm down, Garnier. That’s just Jarvis. He helps out around the place.”

“Good morning, Master Thor,” the voice greeted.

“And you, house spirit,” he replied, narrowed eyes still searching for the sudden presence.

“Shall I tell the caller that the reward is no longer on offer, sir?”

“What reward?” Tony frowned.

“For information on Captain Rogers,” he drawled as if speaking to a five year old. Silence flowed after the announcement. All eyes fixed to the roof, minds grinding to try and process the sentence. Many calls had been made following the disappearance of Captain America and, after the first fifteen false leads and crushed hopes, Tony had ordered Jarvis to do a voice analysis on everyone called in, following the lead himself if he could, only forwarding the ones that appeared genuine. They hadn’t received a call in months.

The room broke out in a cacophony of noises; orders to put the call through, requests for information on the caller, commands to trace the call, screams of joy.

“QUIET!!!!” Tony screamed. Mouths snapped shut and eyes turned to the billionaire. Tony took a few deep breaths before addressing the AI. “Jarvis, put the call through and start a trace on the line.”

“Of course, sir.”

There was quiet and then a tentative voice. “H-hello? I-is this Mr Stark?”

“Yes. Who’s this? Why are you calling?” Tony said, his voice low and dangerous.

“Oh my god!” the voice gushed. “Listen! My name’s Kathy. I need your help. I didn’t know what to do! The doctors won’t know either. You have to help!”

“Kathy, calm down,” Tony said through gritted teeth. His hands were clenched by his side and the colour was slowly draining from his face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s Steve!” she yelled, hysteria brimming in her voice. She was close to tears by the sounds of it. Tony swallowed hard, his arms starting to shake with the slowly welling panic. “I can’t wake him up a-and his skin… oh, god it’s so cold… Please! Please, help him!”

Tony didn’t miss a beat. “Jarvis, have you got that location for me yet?”

“Of course, sir.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Kathy had given up trying to sit and wait patiently. Pacing proved a much better stress reliever. Her eyes jumped from Steve to the door to her feet and back to Steve. She wrung her hands as she paced, the cuticles bleeding from her biting. Her eyes strayed back to her friend. He still hadn’t moved and she was beginning to redefine panic.

God, what was taking them so long?! True, it had only been ten minutes since the call and they were two and a half states away from New York but he was Iron Man, right? He should be able to get there in no time!

Jesus, what if that hadn’t actually been Tony Stark? What if she’d been punked? What if it _was_ Tony Stark and he didn’t believe her? He issued a reward so he must have gotten dozens of fake calls. He probably thought she was another nobody looking for a quick buck. Shit, and she probably sounded insane on the phone too. Double shit. What if they never came? What was she supposed to do with a comatose superhero?

“SHIT!” she screamed, immediately biting her tongue. She looked sheepishly at Steve’s prone form. He may be unconscious but she knew how he felt about swearing. “Sorry, Steve…” she mumbled, sounding like a chastened child. She could picture the face he would have pulled, all disapproving frown and amused eyes. He looked at her like a child who’d been caught trying to sneak a cookie when she broke one of his silently imposed rules. She smiled at the familiarity of the face. It faded when she looked again on the pallid features before her.

She froze in her pacing when she heard a clunk outside followed by an enormous crash that had Kathy drop to her knees, hands over her head. She cursed again, throwing another apology over her shoulder, and ran for the door. She wrenched it open only to be shoved past by a red and gold figure. She staggered into the doorframe, glaring over her shoulder as Iron Man clunked into the hotel room, making a beeline for the bed. An equally large figure in even stranger dress stood just outside the door. A head of blonde hair bowed toward her, an arm folded across his middle.

“Lady Kathy,” he said. “May I enter so as to see to the Captain?” She stood gobsmacked. It was hard to mistake the golden hair and the red cape but the gigantic hammer dangling from his fingertips made him unmistakeable. _Thor… Holy sh-_ She caught the thought and mentally gave her third apology for the morning. She gaped for a moment, unable to speak, before moving aside to allow him in. He nodded graciously and moved to join Stark who was standing and staring at Steve.

“How is he, Friend Stark?” Thor questioned.

“Not good.” Even through the mask, Kathy could hear the graveness in his tone. “His vitals are way off. We need to get him back to the Tower. _Now._ ” Tony leaned down and lifted Steve from the bed, carrying his limp form bridal style toward the door.

“Wait!” Kathy jumped between them and the exit.

Tony huffed impatiently, flipping up his mask to glare her down. “Listen, lady, we’ll wire the money out to you later. Right now, we have to-“

“You think I give a shit about the money?!” Kathy screamed. Stark stared at her while she pulled in a deep breath. “Sorry, Steve,” she muttered again. That brought a quirk to the man’s lips. “I don’t care about the reward,” Kathy started again in a more measured tone. “Steve’s my friend and I want to make sure he’s alright. You think I’m gunna let him get carried out of here by some freak show in a metal suit, even if he is Iron Man? No way. I’m going too,” she finished in a huff, folding her arms across her chest in defiance. Stark stared at her and she stared back, unwavering. Thor stood to the side, watching the exchange with a small, impressed smile on his face.

Tony sniffed. “Alright, Cindy-“

“Kathy.”

“Whatever. You can come. Thor, buddy, why don’t you give her a lift.”

Thor’s smile widened as he stepped forward, clapping Stark on the back. “Excellent!” He smiled down at her and Kathy suddenly felt very intimidated by the enormous man. His outfit was sleeveless and the sharp outline of his muscles were clearly visible. He looked like he could very well crush her if the need should arise. She gulped and returned the smile weakly.

Stark headed out the door and took off, leaving a ring of smoke in his wake. Kathy watched him fly away with apprehension.

“So, uh, how are we gunna do this?” she asked, looking back to the god ( _Jesus, he was actually a_ god!) standing by her side. He reached out and pulled her against him, wrapping his arm securely around her waist, and began swinging the hammer in his hand.

“Hold tight to me, Lady Kathy,” he smirked. No sooner had she grabbed his waist than he threw his arm toward the sky, the momentum of the hammer carrying them both up and away, Kathy’s screams echoing through the hotel parking lot.


	10. Dream Yourself to Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathy smart but she's not a princess, Steve rugs up, Tony hates magic and Deadpool gets a new contract.

“Hey, Doc!” Tony yelled, touching down on the balcony outside the lounge room. Steve was heavy in Tony’s arms and he could feel the cold through his armour.

“Shall I begin disassembly procedures, sir?” Jarvis asked from inside the helmet. Tony wasn’t exactly _weak_ but he seriously doubted he’d be able to stand with the added weight outside the armour.

“No. Leave it on.”

“Of course, sir.”

“OH MY GOD!” Tony groaned when the sound of Kathy’s screams reached him. Jesus, could she do anything but complain? “Slow down, knucklehead! You’re gunna hit the Tower!”

“Calm yourself, Lady Kathy! Our safe landing is assured!” More protests and some booming laughter brought the pair safely to the landing platform. Thor lowered Kathy to the ground as Tony turned to check on them. He didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned by the fact that she was white as a sheet but still managed to blush and look indignant at being manhandled by the Norse god. She adjusted her breasts without even attempting subtlety, pushing them back into a comfortable position and scowling at Thor who flushed in embarrassment and turned away. _Impressed,_ he decided.

Tony headed inside, hailing Bruce on the coms to have him meet them in medical. The stomping of feet behind signalled Thor’s pursuit but he couldn’t hear the girl. Tony almost looked over his shoulder before remembering his sensors. They popped up on the HUD and there she was, walking in front of Thor, almost directly on his heels. _Sneaky little thing…_

Tony adjusted Steve against his chest, trying not to think about the way he offered no resistance, no sound of protest at being carried around like a damsel in distress. It wasn’t right. Steve was the strongest of all of them. The Star Spangled Man with a Plan. He shouldn’t be so helpless.

Tony gritted his teeth and walked a little faster. They could fix this. They had to.

The small party pushed through the door to the medical wind and Bruce was already rushing towards them, a young nurse in tow.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What are his vitals like?”

“They’re way off, Doc. His heart rate is down and he’s barely breathing. He’s ice cold.” Tony pushed past them into the room. He laid Steve down carefully on the bed in the middle, pulling the blankets up to his chin.

“We have to get him warm. Ellie!” Bruce pointed at the nurse. “Go find some more blankets and some heat packs.” She nodded quickly and hurried off. “Jarvis! Can you turn the temperature up in here please?”

“Of course, Doctor,” the AI replied, a hint of worry in his voice, and suddenly the room felt five degrees warmer.

“That’s not gunna work.” Everyone turned to the woman standing just inside the doorway, her arms held awkwardly behind her back and her eyes fixed on the immobile super soldier. “When I got there he was wrapped up in every blanket and towel in his room and he was already freezing.”

“We’ve got to do something!” Tony yelled. Kathy’s lips pursed in thought as the nurse returned and started packing the hot packs against Steve’s skin draping the blankets over the top of him and tucking them tighter the his body.

“Your repulsor gauntlets…” she mused. “They work on collimated beams of Synchrotron light, right?”

Bruce and Tony looked at each other, eyebrows raised in shock. Tony turned back to her slowly, voice heavy with suspicion. “Yeah…”

“Then the collision of protons and electrons within the electromagnetic radiation generates heat?”

“Of course, but-“

“So just use a lower frequency of EMR. The energy transfer from protons to electrons should create enough heat to warm without burning the good Captain to a cinder.” Bruce and Tony stared slack jawed as she shrugged innocently. “It’s a simple enough solution.”

“Tony…?”

“She’s right…” Tony was still staring. _What the hell? I thought this chick was a waitress or something!_ She raised an eyebrow at him, snapping Tony out of his daze. He shook himself, turning to Bruce. “She’s right. You should step back a bit. It’s about to get a little toasty.”

“Seriously? You’re a genius and the foster kid you picked up off the side of the road came up with a plan first?” Kathy scoffed.

“Shut up, princess.” _This woman is seriously bipolar…_

“You are of royal blood, Lady Kathy?” Thor blurted indignantly. “Had I known-“

“He’s just teasing, big guy,” Bruce interrupted, patting his shoulder, a smile on his face.

“Can I do this now or what?”

“Be my guest, bucket head,” Kathy smirked, motioning toward Steve.

Tony rolled his eyes turning back to his friend. _What is_ with _this chick?_ He dialled down the strength on his repulsors, flipping the blankets back and levelling them at the exposed skin. “Jarvis, monitor changes in Cap’s vitals.”

“Already begun, sir.”

“Let’s hope this works, Tinker Bell.” Tony fired the repulsors, the normally focused blue light spread out and dispersed over the Captain’s motionless form, encompassing him like a shroud dropped by loving hands. Heat radiated in waves from the bed. Tony had to physically restrain himself from wiping the sweat beading on his face. The suit was like an oven.

“You have to crank it up!” Kathy yelled at him.

“What? Are you crazy!” Tony called over his shoulder.

“You’ve got the heat set for normal people. Super soldier skin is twice as resilient! You have to turn it up!” she instructed.

Tony groaned. He was starting to hate it when she was right. He cranked the heat up again.

“Sir, Captain Roger’s body temperature is rising.”

Tony kept adjusting the strength, making it warmer incrementally. Too much heat could cause heat stroke or worse, organ failure, brain damage or just straight out burns. Steve’s breath shuddered in his chest, colour coming back into his skin as he drew short, shallow gasps. Tony grit his teeth, sweat running down his face despite the suit’s environmental control systems. Behind him he heard the click of the door sealing, the others retreating to the next room where the heat was more bearable.

“Suit temperature approaching critical, sir. If the temperature continues to rise, you will risk complete system damage,” Jarvis cautioned from inside the helmet.

“Just a little more, pal. Looks like the Cap’s coming back to us.”

Steve gasped and his eyes opened, looking around blearily. Tony shut off the repulsors and ran to the bed, ignoring the flashing warnings that filled his display. The soldier’s eyes were already drooping again and his body quaked with cold shivers.

“Cap? Hey, come on, Rogers, stay with me here!” Tony yelled frantically, slapping Steve’s cheek to bring him back to the land of the living. His glazed eyes looked around, unfocused, until they landed on Tony’s face.

“Stark?” he wheezed. “What the hell…?”

“We don’t have time for that, Steve. You’ve got to tell us how this happened. What started it?” Steve blinked up at him, his mind having trouble processing what he was saying. Everyone silently filtered back into the room, Kathy taking up a position on the other side of Steve’s bed, her hand on his arm. Tony gave her a nod and she smiled weakly in response. Steve didn’t even seem to notice the new arrivals.

Tony squeezed Steve’s arm and his eyes cleared. “Steve, we need you to think. This is important.”

Steve’s eyebrows drew together in concentration. “I was clearing a table… and there was a woman. She looked so sad… I asked her why and she told me about her son. He was in the army and he got shot… I tried… to comfort her and she thanked me. She…” He took a laboured breath and blinked to clear his head. “She squeezed my arm and her skin… God, it was cold. So cold…” Shiver’s ran through the Cap’s limbs. “And when it touched me it… I could have sworn…” He shook his head weakly.

“What is it, Captain?” Thor asked from his position near the foot of the bed. Steve kept looking at Tony, like he thought the question came from him.

“It turned blue… Why is it so c-cold?”

“Sir, Captain Rogers’ body temperature is dropping,” Jarvis warned.

“Thank you, Jarvis, I can see that.”

“B-bomb… Gotta put it… water…” Steve’s sentences fractured behind his chattering teeth, his eyelids sliding closed. “Dance… I’ll make it… p-promised…”

“No! Steve, you have to stay awake. Steve? Steve!” Kathy shook his shoulders but he was already gone. She stood looking down at her friend, tears pooling in her eyes and a white-knuckle grip on his hand. If he wasn’t Captain America, Tony was sure there would have been broken bones.

“Man of Iron, may I speak with you?” Thor looked over his shoulder sadly at Kathy. “In company better minded for such talks?” Tony nodded, gesturing for Bruce to follow them as they made their way out of the room. In the hallway Thor’s face turned deadly serious. “I believe the good Captain to be cursed by the magics of Jotunheim.”

Tony swore. God he hated magic… “What kind of curse are we talking about here, muscles?”

“A spell to turn his mind against him. It twists his worst fear into his reality, tricking his mind into believing that his nightmare is come for him.”

“And Cap has nightmares about being frozen. Shit…” Tony ran a hand through his hair distractedly. The team had caught Steve in the throes of a nightmare more than once, screams echoing down the halls. He always tried to pretend that nothing was wrong when he came down in the mornings but everyone could see his hands shaking as he poured his coffee. Nobody pitied him. They’d all had their share of traumatic events and none of them had wanted to see the pity in everyone’s eyes when they were caught.

“Tony…” Bruce’s hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. “If this is magic, I doubt there’s anything I can do for him.”

Stark nodded glumly, knowing that Bruce was right and biting his head off wasn’t going to do them any good. “What about you, Thor? Can you use some of your mojo to fix this? Or is this like a ‘true love’s kiss’ sort of deal?”

Thor frowned at the reference but decided now wasn’t the time. “This spell can only be broken by someone who understands how it was cast.” Tony’s shoulders slumped and Bruce dropped his eyes to his feet, hand tightening on the engineer’s shoulder. “But there is one thing I could try.” Eyes snapped back to the god’s face. “Each soul has a different resonance. With practice, you can learn to distinguish between them. When a spell is used, the caster leaves an imprint of that resonance within the subject, linking to two together for as long as the spell remains. I am most certain that this spell was Loki’s to cast and his resonance is familiar to me. If I were to take a piece of the resonance within the Captain, it could be followed and lead us to my brother’s location. We could then… ‘convince’ him to restore Friend Steve.”

A smile had been creeping up Tony’s face the more Thor told them. Bruce was surprised that his cheeks hadn’t split with the force of it. He was practically jumping up and down at the prospect of getting his hands on Loki.

“Alright, big guy,” Tony beamed. “What do you need to get this shindig going?”

“I merely need a few moments to find the resonance.”

“ _Now_ this is starting to sound like a plan.”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“He’s not here!”

_Can you do anything but whine?_

Deadpool flopped down onto Peter’s bed, sprawling with all the grace of a child who’d lost their favourite toy. Eight May Parkers later and he’d finally found the right address but Peter was nowhere to be seen and if Wade had to guess, he’d say that no one had been into the room in at least two weeks.

Wade could track down anyone, and he meant anyone, but Peter? He somehow always managed to slip under his radar. Which was annoying because Wade wanted milkshakes and Peter always made the best ones.

_I guess you could say his milkshakes brought all the boys to the yard, right?_

“Wow, I’m so glad that I leave you in charge of my intelligence.”

_That’s hurtful. I was just trying to cheer you up._

“Aww, really?” Deadpool clapped his hands together, holding them next to his cheek.

_No, you’re an idiot and you can’t even track a seventeen year old!_

“Hey, I’m-“

The buzz of Wade’s phone cut off his retort. He flipped it open, a smile splitting his face as he read the new message.

‘ _Five mil for the spider’s head on a platter.’_


	11. These Motherfucking Snakes in This Motherfucking River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't Loki but it was(?), Tony watches High School Musical and, oh, there's a giantarse snake.

The occupants of the thingstead crowded the viewing pool, harried whispers like the rumble of a glacier as they peered into the water expectantly, waiting for the show to begin.

                                                                                                             

**~AVENGERS~**

Saying you could cut the tension in the room with a knife didn’t quite, for lack of a better term, cut it. Tony wasn’t even sure his repulsors could do the job at this point. The entire team (sans Clint who was still mysteriously missing) were gathered around the Captain’s bed, watching with a mix of fascination and fear as Thor laid a hand on Steve’s head, closing his eyes to focus.

If this worked, they would have a beat on Loki. If it didn’t… Tony didn’t want to think about it.

Luckily, he didn’t have to. Thor looked up again, a furrow immediately forming between his brows, a look of confused revulsion on his face. That didn’t bode well.

“Did you get it, big guy?” Tony asked, anxiously playing with the Iron Man helmet he held in his hand.

“Yes, but this was not a spell of Loki’s making, though it is similar.”

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked, wringing his hands out of nervous habit.

“Loki’s charms are always slippery, devious things that reek of mischief and envy. This…” He gestured back at the Captain. “This burns of anger and feeds on fear. It is a creation of most malevolent spite that _wants_ to be found, to be known for its rage.” He shook his head sharply. “My brother is filled with greenest jealousy but he is no creature of evil.”

“Tell that to New York,” Natasha mumbled.

“But you can find who did it, right muscles? And they can fix this?” Tony questioned, his voice almost desperate.

“Of course, my friend,” Thor reassured, clapping a firm hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Arm yourselves and I will lead you to them.”

None of them needed to be told twice.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

“Guys, I don’t mean to be a pessimist,” Tony called through the coms from his position above the wharf, his eyes glued to the green and gold figure that stood solitary, his blue eyes and toothy grin pointed upwards. “But this stinks worse than Katpiss Neverclean over there.”

“Hey!” Clint squawked, the brush of wind distorting the transmission. “At least _I_ wipe down the gym equipment when I’m done, Sir Sweatsalot!”

“Boys,” Natasha cut in. “I think you should know that I have access to the places you sleep and a guy in bioweapons owes me a favour.” The com channel went silent as they mulled that over. A shudder ran down Tony’s spine as he remembered the incident with the hair straightener. He would rather not have a repeat performance. “Though Tony is right.”

“Ha! Suck it, feathers!”

“Tony, Thor; engage him and try to talk him into reversing the spell. Clint; get some height and try to take him out with the SLTs. Bruce; stay back unless it looks like it’s getting out of hand.”

“No argument here,” the scientist muttered.

“I’ll sneak around the crates and take him down if negotiation fails.”

“Have you been taking lessons from Cap?” Tony asks. “Seriously, you’ve got this presence. Very commanding. I like it.”

Natasha smoothly ignored him, instead asking, “Are we ready?”

“Go Wildcats,” Tony sighs, swooping down to land next to Thor and walking out onto the docks together.

It was unnerving, to say the least, the way Loki watched them advanced with his posture relaxed and the wild, almost manic grin on his face that only seemed to grow wider the closer they came. There was something about him that seemed… off. He looked emaculate in every sense of the word; his hair perfectly slicked back, clothes straight, armour polished, no bags under his eyes like when he’d tried to claim the city just a few months before. The crazed revenge-driven madman they had fought before was gone. Instead, they faced this Loki; perfectly primed and looking every bit the heir the throne he claimed to be.

It was almost disturbing.

He looked too perfect considering what Thor had assured them he had been forced to endure as punishment. There wasn’t a hair out of place nor a scar on his skin. Tony didn’t like it.

When they stopped in front of him, Thor hefted his hammer lightly, his narrowed gaze locked with his brothers.

“What have you done to our captain, Loki.” His voice was level but the thread of anger was still there, the threat sounding plainly. Loki’s smirk turned feral.

“Hello to you too, brother, how very lovely to see you again. How is mother doing? She seemed upset last I saw her.”

Tony shot out a hand to hold the god from beating the smirk off of Loki’s face and had to mentally pull himself back from doing the same when the Jotun chuckled.

“Alright, Bambi, remove the spell and we’ll make sure the Hulk doesn’t get to play with his favourite toy.”

He frowned sadly at them. “And here I brought you a gift and everything.”

“Gift?” Tony’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What gift?”

“It’ll be here soon enough,” Loki said pleasantly, the smile back in place.

Thor opened his mouth to demand that the spell be removed again when the ground shook, a reptilian roar splitting across the docks and rolling out into the city.

“Well, that doesn’t sound like fun. Widow?”

“We heard it, Stark! Clint, take him down!” Before she’d even finished speaking an arrow snapped through the Loki, the image shimmering and fading while the arrow lodged itself in the concrete.

“Sorry, Nat, Sedative Laced Tips don’t do much against illusions.”

“Why do you sound like you’re blaming me?” Tony snapped. “I can’t make an arrow to hit something that isn’t there, that seems like a fair limitation on my otherwise godlike abilities wouldn’t you say?”

“Friend Stark,” Thor yells, wrenching Tony’s attention back to the bay in front of them. An enormous black shadow was zipping through the water toward them. An analysis of the shadow popped up on Tony’s HUD without prompt. He stared at it, trying to process what he was being shown.

“Uh, guys, that’s –“ A shriek silences him. The shadow has reached the dock, rearing up, bursting through the surface.

“Jormungandr,” Thor finished, wide, grave eyes watching the creature thrashing about above the water.

It was incredible and terrifying. Deadly beauty had never seemed a more accurate phrase. Jormungandr’s size must have equalled the Chitauri cruise liner Tony had led to the other Avengers at the beginning of the battle and tripled its length. Its scales shone a brilliant ocean blue flecked through with sea green down the intimidating curve of its spine, only broken by a wing on either side that extended to what must have been ten or twelve metres, its eyes a chilling yellow above its gaping maw, water dripping menacingly from fangs that must have been at least the size of a fifty year old tree.

“I’m not hallucinating again, right?” Tony checked, backing up slowly, Thor keeping in line as they went. “Because, you know, if I am, I’d like a medal for my creativity and copyright on that beautiful monster so I can sell it to Disney, I’m sure there’s a story they can get out of this.”

The hideous yellow eyes snapped down, locking on Tony and Thor’s movement. It screeched again, liquid flying from its mouth and splattering the docks. It sprang at them. Tony and Thor jumped apart, fangs gouging into the concrete where they had been standing. Tony took to the skies, firing off repulsors. They bounced off the Jor’s scales, not even earning a flinch from the goliath.

“It appears the creatures hide is too thick for your repulsors, sir,” Jarvis intoned.

“What would I do without you, Jarvis?” Tony snarked back, dropping down onto its head and taking aim at the big yellow target.

“Starve, sir.”

“That was much too true an answer for my liking, J, really, I’m hurt.”

“Stark!” Natasha screamed down the com. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Fulfilling my dream of becoming a wizard,” he shouted back, letting off a repulsor blast. The snake screamed, blood pouring from its now empty eye socket and whipping its head to the side. Tony rolled off but before he could get his boots firing again, it snapped back, its skull cracking against his side. Tony smacked into the side of the boathouse, bursting through the wall and crashing into the side of the fishing trawler inside.

Outside Thor brought him hammer down on a joint in the wing, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone and a feral scream. He jumps backward out of range of the flailing limp, using Mjolnir to swat it away whenever it came close. An arrow buried itself in the hole created by Tony’s repulsor blast and a roar brought the Hulk into the theatre.

The giant jumped, hurtling himself at the snake and wrapped his powerful green arms around its neck, using one hand to hold himself to the scales and the other to punch at its throat. Jor dropped down, throwing its whole bodyweight against the floor. The Hulk got caught between, smashing into the ground, trapped under the creature’s enormous girth.

Thor rushed forward, his hammer raised to be brought down on the snake’s snout. Its face snapped up, jaws wrapping around the god and holding him. Another arrow finds its way into the hole of the Jormungandr’s eye and it bites down harder on its captive, its tail swiping around, knocking into the building Hawkeye was occupying.

“Clint!” Natasha yelled, charging at the creature, a knife in each hand.

“I’m fine,” he groaned through the crackling com. “Just get the bastard!”

And Natasha had been one for following orders. She ran towards it, jumping, falling, her knives sinking between the scales. She yanks them sideways down its flank, driving them deeper as she went.

“Holy hand grenade, Batman, what are those knives _made_ of?” Tony groused, charging back into the fray.

“Adamantium.”

“Well that explains a few things. I thought my repulsors were playing up, you’re just cheating!”

“Being better prepared isn’t cheating, Stark,” she scoffed, dodging a swipe of the tail with her spooky ninja reflexes (it still creeps Tony out, no matter how long he’s watched her swipe the last cookie out from under his fingers).

A roar cut off his comeback (he had one, he swears) and pounding set the ground shaking.

“Hulk want out!”

“I’m sorry, was that Jolly?” Tony asked, scanning the battlefield for the not-so-subtle mountain of a man.

“The snake fell on him,” Clint reported, the whistling of wind as he let loose another arrow audible over the com.

“And are we going to help him, children? You have to learn to help each other, team work is a very important skill and-“

“Little busy!” the Tweedle Twins yelled back.

“I as well, Man of Iron,” Thor added from his spot inside the snakes jaws, his fists scrabbling wildly to get a grip and pry them open.

“Ugh, fine, I’ll do it. No, no, don’t thank me, I’d do it for any of you.”

“No you wouldn’t!”

“That’s rude and ungrateful. I’m palming your next rescue off onto the Hulk, Robin.” Tony swooped down to the ground, landing to see a green fist sticking out from under the great blue belly of the beast pounding a hole into the concrete angrily. Tony slipped his gauntleted hands under the monster and turned back to look at the flailing hand. “Okay, buddy, we’re going to lift. Ready? Go!” Tony heaved, servos whirring, metal groaning and oh, god, his back. He was getting too old for this. The body lifted away from the concrete and the Hulk managed to get enough room to wedge his hands under it with Tony. He pushed up, roaring loudly, until he had the room to roll out, Jor crashing back to the pavement. Tony straightened up only to be knocked back down by a slap to the back.

“Hulk thank metal man!” the giant grinned. He nodded once before jumping off back to the fight. Tony hauled himself to his feet, rolled his shoulder, muttered “With friends like these…” and pushed off the ground after him.

Thor still couldn’t get his fingers into the gap he needed and he didn’t have a good enough angle to swing Mjolnir. An arrow thunked into the thing’s eye socket again and it clenched its jaws. Thor cried out in pain, his ribcage warping under the pressure, bones bending, just this side of cracking and if he doesn’t do something soon-

“Need a hand?” Thor’s head whipped around to see Spiderman crouched on Jormungandr’s snout, expressionless mask watching. The vice clenched again and he grunted, nodding quickly. Spiderman dropped down beside him, planting his feet on the bottom jaw and grabbing the upper with his hands, pushing against the grip. “Whoo! Somebody eats their steak, huh?” he ground out, pushing harder and the jaws began to shift. A few more inches and…

Thor pushed himself up and twisted out of the mouth, grabbing Spiderman around the middle and leaping away as the jaws snapped shut. He dropped to the floor, setting down his costumed saviour and looking him up and down before nodding slightly.

“Thank you, Spider Child. Your assistance is much needed in securing Jormungandr. See if you can’t tie him down while we keep his eyes from you.”

“It’s Spider _man_ ,” Peter mumbled but nodded and swung off to try and secure the tail that was still whipping around with the Black Widow holding on for the ride.

Webbing the tail down was proving to be harder than he’d thought; the damn thing kept snapping his webs. He was going to have to get a bit more creative. Peter shot one end of the web at the ground and started weaving strands together to make a thicker (and hopefully stronger) cable. When he finished, he threw it over the tail pulling it tight and attaching it to itself like a lasso. Jormungandr screeched, throwing its weight sideways, away from Widow’s knives. The web stretched taught and…

_Snap!_

Peter cursed, ducking out of the way as the cable whipped back around with enough elastic force to take his head off. This just wasn’t working. He needed to come up with something else, something-

“Hey, Charlotte!” Peter turned to see Iron Man hovering above him. “I’ve got a plan, wanna tag along?” He wasn’t doing anything useful anyway. Peter shot out a web, attaching himself to the Iron Man suits chest plate and getting dragged behind as Stark took off.

Below, Natasha was still gritting her teeth as the tail whipped her across the ground, her knives the only thing stopping her from being thrown across the battlefield.

“Alright. I’m done!” she decided. Natasha transferred her weight to her left hand, wrenching her right knife from the skin of the snake, sinking it in further up its back and dragging it down, scoring a long gash in the flesh. Jormungandr whipped faster, roaring its outrage. She reached up again, running through the same cut, slicing deeper. She kept going until she found bone and blood had soaked the front of her outfit, matting her hair, then she yelled into the coms, “Clint! Got any explosive rounds left?”

The sound of air splitting in the path of a projectile was his response. She plucked the arrow from the air as it sailed past her head and threw it down into the gash she’d cut, wedging it between flesh and bone. She pulled her other knife, throwing herself from the thrashing tail and landing in a neat roll, coming back to her feet smoothly.

“Now!”

The explosion rocked the ground, the tail blown to pieces like a plugged gun in an old cartoon. The screaming was ear-splitting, filled with rage and pain. Its head whipped around to come at her again. The Hulk jumped in front of her, roaring, and clamped his hands down around Jor’s face, holding the thrashing snake firm. Thor jumped down from the sky, Mjolnir smashing into its one working wing, shattering the bones. It hissed in rage, trying to flap the crippled limp.

“Keep ‘im there, muscles!” Iron Man’s robotic voice ordered over the docks.  Natasha looked up to see Stark carrying an enormous metal girder, one end jagged and broken, with Spiderman perched on his back carrying what looked to be an overgrown cinderblock on a stick. Hulk roared and tightened his hold on the thrashing snake while Stark got into position. Thor leapt onto the beasts back, placing Mjolnir just below its skull, trapping it under the hammer’s weight. Tony brought the end of the girder right over the centre of the snake’s head, the point hovering right between its eyes.  Tony turned his head to look at the kid hero crouched between his shoulder blades, a smirk in his voice as he asked “Ready, Petey?”

“Batter up!” Peter returned, grinning like a madman as he hefted his makeshift mallet. Stark lifted his arms and slammed the spike down into Jor’s skull and Peter jumped bringing the hammer down with all his enhanced strength behind it, driving it home.

Jormungandr stopped moving, blood dribbling lazily down the rivets of its head, mouth wedged open by its gargantuan fangs. Hulk roared at it and gave it a punch for good measure while the rest of the heroes rallied on the ground around the sad remains of the creature. Tony took stock of everyone as he set himself down; Hulk was perfectly fine (as always); Clint had a few scratches and he was limping a bit but was otherwise fine; Natasha was cradling her left arm and a quick scan showed a small fracture in her wrist; Thor was perfect (I mean look at that bone structure and those muscles…) and Peter… just seemed like he was having fun. Tony turned to watch the young man poking around the corpse; sticking his head in its mouth, poking its fangs, generally doing the science nerd thing (Tony could respect that, he’d have SI employees down to pick up samples later anyway). It was a shame to interrupt him, really, but…

“Listen, kid, we need to talk.”

“I don’t want to,” Peter answered, not even turning around. That was just rude. Tony flipped the faceplate up to get a good look at him.

“Look, Peter, this isn’t about you right now,” Natasha chimed in and, oh, he turns around for _her_. “There’s something big coming and this thing?” She gestured to Jormungandr. “It’s just the start. There’s an army coming. You weren’t there for the first one but we need your help this time. You don’t even have to join the Avengers, we just need you until this is over.” Peter stared at them, blank mask giving nothing away as he looks between the group. He must have seen something because he nodded and pointed to Natasha.

“Just until this is over. I’m holding you to that.”

“Great!” Tony’s armoured hands clang as he claps them together. “Now that that’s settled, let’s go back to the Tower, I’m starving and Jarvis is ordering pizza, aren’t you Jarvis?”

“Whatever more important thing could I be doing, sir?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Harried whispers run around the thingstead, heads turning to each other, questioning, demanding, insulting, and, eventually, all eyes turn to the front of the room where the god of mischief leans with his hands pressed to the icy rock table, face twisted into a snarl, eyes burning with rage, and the gently smiling king seated in his throne behind.


	12. Cat-astrophe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deadpool may or may not be dickless, Peter is a sneaky bugger with mad hacking skills, really, Kathy opened her cafe because she finds it therapeutic, there's some tragic backstory, Cap is sleeping beauty minus the kiss plus, plus, plUS the beauty, Thor is awestruck, Kit may be magic, the team really hate Fury and there is a lot of awkward staring. Also, Cap has a funny middle name.

_Well, this certainly got way more complicated…_

“This is so not worth five million anymore.”

Deadpool’s money was skulking off behind the biggest block to his business since the arms boom after the Incident. Nobody wanted to hire a mercenary when they could get a gun and do it themselves for cheap. Of course, a few tactically placed bombs and some well forged emails brought business crashing right back.

The Avengers were his last barricade to a thriving bounty hunter career, always getting in the way, trying to slow him down with hacked off limbs or, on one memorable occasion, pieces better left unmentioned.

_Well, it’s not like you’re using it…_

“Don’t tell the readers that! One of them might be interested…” Deadpool smirked, turning and looking up at you, somehow managing to wiggle his eyebrows through the mask.

_Stop flirting with them; they’re probably here for Peter, anyway._

Deadpool scratched his head confusedly. “Peter? What do you mean Peter?”

_*Sigh* Never mind, you’ll figure it out eventually. Just follow them._

“Aww, but I don’t want my dick blown off again!”

_Follow them, wait until Spiderman goes off on his own, sword to the neck and there’s an easy five million._

Wade thought about it, pursing his lips in consideration. “Huh, wow. I guess there’s a reason you were left in charge of my brain after all.”

_Why? Because I use more than 2% of my thinking power? Now shut up and go before you lose them._

“We know exactly where they’re going, though.”

Wade pointed out over the city, across rooftops and alleyways, to the most identifiable landmark in the ruins of New York. The enormous silver building with the glowing ‘A’ on its side. Avengers HQ, no matter what SHIELD would want you to believe.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

 

“So, Stark Tower, huh?” Peter asked, walking toward the big glass doors at its front. The building was, to say the least, a little intimidating. With its big chrome structures, enormous height and one way glass panels, Peter couldn’t help feeling like if he walked through them, he wouldn’t be allowed to leave again and he knew _exactly_ what they said about closed doors.

“Yeah,” Doctor Banner smiled. “SHIELD wasn’t working for us.” And Peter can tell that by ‘us’ he means ‘him’. Everyone knew the Hulk’s history; he was splashed all over the news when he was first changed and the old stories made a reappearance when he joined up with the Avengers. The only part of his story that remains a mystery to the general public is exactly _how_ he got the way he was. All anyone ever says is that there was a lab accident.

“Have you ever been?” Stark asks from his side. Peter still isn’t sure what to think of him; he asks the question neutrally but he’s staring at him with the most calculating expression. Peter almost feels like Flash had made some stupid comment about his parents and was waiting for him to rise to the bait. Again.

“Once,” he answered, standing up a little straighter. “I pretended to be an intern and snuck in.” Peter decided that if Stark was challenging him, he wouldn’t disappoint. Judging by the raised eyebrows, he was doing well. Peter shrugged. “It worked well enough for me at Oscorp.” Stark looks like he wants to ask something about that but changes track.

“How far did you get?” he questions instead. He asks things like he does everything else that isn’t to do with Iron Man: with a distinct disinterest; like he’s heard it all before and nothing anyone ever says could surprise him.

Peter had to grit his teeth when he answered; “The 82nd floor.” The brings Stark up short. Peter felt a small sense of smug pride at rendering the great Tony Stark wide-eyed and slightly slack-jawed.

“The 82nd floor? As in floor eight-two? Two floors above eighty?” he asked, rapid-fire. Peter had his full attention now and he had to try really hard not to smile or, god forbid, laugh. Stark looked manic when he was really interested in something. Peter just bit down on his cheek and nodded. “But floors 81 and up are-“

“-Avengers floors,” Peter finishes. “Why do you think I snuck in? I had to scope out the competition.” The smile he’d been valiantly fighting down was starting to break free; he could feel it twitching at the edges of his lips.

“Competi-!” Tony spluttered. “Oh, that’s it, bug boy! The game is _on!_ I’ll bet you couldn’t make it past the first _three_ security doors to get to my lab!” Peter opened his mouth to ask the terms but Stark cut him off. “And another thing; _Jarvis!_ Why didn’t I hear about this heinous violation of security protocol?” He whipped a phone from the pocket of his jeans, glaring down at the blue-lit screen.

“ _My apologies, Sir. I was not aware there had been a breach,”_ a voice answered from the tiny device. Peter cocked his head at it, scrutinising the scroll of data across the display.

“How could you be unaware? You control the entire Tower!” Tony was flailing his free arm around in a dramatic gesture that encompassed the entire building before them. Peter looked up at the structure again and it clicked.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, snatching the phone from Tony. “Is this the ‘Just A Rather Very Intelligent System’?” Tony was staring at him again but Peter didn’t notice; he was too engrossed in looking through the coding. “Wow, the compact version is elegant. The full one was so huge and jumbled… It took me ages to find the code I needed to erase the security data.”

“You hacked Jarvis?” Stark asked. Peter flinched a little, slowly handing the phone back with a sheepish grin.

“Just a little?”

Tony kept staring at him. Peter was starting to sweat. Tony was probably angry. Peter had snuck into his tower, hacked into his systems and messed with his AI. Peter would be pissed if he was Tony and Tony had the power to make Peter’s life a living hell. Peter should never have come here, never have agreed to be a part of this mission, never should have even talked-

Tony was laughing, why was he laughing?

“Oh, kid,” he gaped, supporting himself on Peter’ shoulder while he got his breath back. “You and I are going to be good friends. As soon as you show me how you got into Jarvis so I can path up that little security hole.” He was smiling at Peter and, yeah, Peter didn’t get this guy at all.

“Hey!” Clint yelled. They both turned to see the rest of the team standing around the doorway, watching them with small, tired smiles on their faces. “You nerds comin’ or what?”

“I resent that. I’m a geek," they both say and then glare at each other. The team are laughing. But then Peter had to go and open his mouth.

“Hey, where’s Captain America?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

Kathy rushed over to the oven when the timer went off, pulling the tray from the head and setting it on the cooling rack on the counter. She grabbed the next batch and pushed them in, closing the door and turning to observe her work. The chocolate soufflé was a rich brown on the surface, having risen evenly all around, not collapsed in the middle; pretty much perfect. She huffed at it. Pretty much wasn’t good enough. She looked down the line at the cheesecake and the crème brulée and the puddings and slices and pies and cookies.

She wanted to be useful. Kathy wasn’t used to just sitting around, doing nothing, hoping for the best. She much preferred to be there in the thick of it, doing anything she could think of to make it better, easier. Even on the streets when she was younger she could never leave well enough alone; she always had to get involved, trying to fix other people’s problems.

She was a fighter, no matter what anyone said; if she wasn’t she wouldn’t be alive right now. So to be relegated to the sidelines…

But they were superheroes and they’d gone off to fight a _god._ She was nowhere near good enough to help them take that on, street brawls aside. She could hold her own but she wasn’t defending New York anytime soon.

She needed to be helpful. She needed to be doing something to keep her from feeling like she was shirking her duties, something to stop her thinking about Steve up stairs, cold and getting colder, or whether the others would die.

She shook the thoughts from her head and poured her frustration into mixing the batter for the mousse. If all she could do was make sure that there was a meal on the table when everyone got home, then everything needed to be absolutely perfect.

Kathy poured the mixture into twelve small glass cups and piled them onto the top shelf in the fridge, the one that wasn’t filled with vegetables she’d had Jarvis order and the slices she’d made that were setting.

“Wow, you’ve been busy.” Kathy jumped a foot in the air when Tony’s voice reached her. She snapped around to face him, slamming the fridge with a tad more force than necessary.

She looked him over for a moment. He seemed mostly fine though there was going to be a hell of a bruise around that eye in the morning and he really should clean out those cuts. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to keel over, she marched across the room and swung a punch into his shoulder that made Tony wince and rub at the spot. She resolved to check what he was hiding under that shirt later.

“What took you so long?” she demanded. He gasped placing a hand to his wounded heart.

“I go through all this trouble to stop the giant snake attacking the city without making a single dick joke and this is how you thank me? I am offended, truly hurt, Katey.” She huffed, shoving him gently and turning back to the kitchen. She had to clean up. There was stuff everywhere; she couldn’t start another batch until it was clean.

“I know you’re just doing it to piss me off now, so this is the last time I’m going to correct you; It’s _Kathy._ Do I need to spell it out for you, genius boy?” Tony smirked and moved into the room.

“No, I think I got it, Cathy.” She sighed, practically _hearing_ the ‘C’ in the name.

“Did you get the bastard?” she asks, needing to hear the answer, to know that Steve was going to be fine. There was silence that was more telling than anything. Kathy nodded jerkily, picking a bowl up off the table and headed to the sink, her back to Tony.

“I’m sorry,” Tony offered. He sounded it; his voice was ragged with exhaustion and disappointment. Kathy suddenly remembered that Steve was Tony’s friend as well, that this must be eating him as much as it was her. More, even. Hell, he’d known him longer, fought with him. They were probably best friends. After being the only one that knew him for so long, it was jarring to realise that there were other people that cared about Steve.

She turned back to him, needing to see the expression there. Kathy needed to know he really, truly cared about what happened to him. She scanned him face. It wasn’t exactly what she was looking for but it would do.

She gave Tony a small watery smile. “It’s fine. We’ll figure something else out, right?” Tony returned the smile with a determined nod and it was like they’d reached an agreement; they’d do anything to make Steve well again.

Kathy sniffed, coughed, straightened up. “Was there something you wanted, Tony?” He hummed an acknowledgment and strode over to the bench Kathy stood behind, dropping onto one of the barstools opposite her.

“I have five questions for you, Miss Tough-As-Nails-Foster-Kid-Who-Thinks-She’s-Smarter-Than-Tony.” Kathy smirked.

“You need to remove the ‘thinks’ from in there. Shoot.”

“First question: what’s with all the food?” he asks, sweeping his hand around to encompass the kitchen counters laden with all manner of desserts and dinners. Kathy shrugs, shifting some treats from the racks to a plate and placing them in front of Tony.

“I was making dinner.” Tony quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at her, crunching down on one of the triple choc cookies. She sighed theatrically. “Okay, fine. I cook when I’m nervous and when the man who pays the bills goes out to fight the Basilisk while looking for a cure for my cursed friend, I don’t think I can _get_ more nervous.”

“At least _you_ get Harry Potter references,” Tony mumbles, nodding his understanding. “Okay, question two: we _have_ food? I didn’t think any of the kitchens were stocked, we order in every night.”

“Apparently Jarvis recognises that normal people need to eat so when I asked him where the kitchen was, he ordered a full pantry for me.” She looked to the ceiling. “Thanks again for that, Jarvis.”

 _“My pleasure, Miss Jackson.”_ Kathy scowled.

“That’s my foster name, Jarvis. Please don’t use it again.”

_“And what is your real last name, if I may be so bold?”_

“Don’t know,” she answered, lips pursed in thought. “I never really thought about it. Didn’t really care. Just call me Kathy, or Miss Kathy if it makes you more comfortable.”

 _“Of course, Miss. And may I congratulate you on your success in feeding one of the house’s not-so-normal inhabitants.”_ Kathy’s brow furrowed and she turned to Tony. He was scowling down at the plate. The empty plate. Kathy burst out laughing, not even fazed when the scowl was turned on her.

“Anytime, Jarvis,” She tried to choke down the laughter, turning back to Tony and wiping a tear from her eye. “Anytime. You’ve got three questions left, fly boy. Use them wisely.”

“Why do you get so upset when you can’t help?” The question came without any preamble, no build up, and it through Kathy.

“I don’t get-!” she started to argue. Tony pointed to the row of still warm soufflés. She sighed, crossing her arms, and settled her hip against the counter.

“There aren’t a lot of girls growing up on the street.” She looked up at him, her features grave and eyes sad. “That being said, there are even less in thieving crews. The movies would have you think that they take girls to act as bait or a distraction, to flirt the crew’s way into whatever club, shop or coat pocket was that day’s mark. But the reality is that everybody’s weak on the streets; there isn’t enough food or beds to sleep in or shelter to hide in for everyone in a crew, let alone everyone on the streets. And the question comes out; if everyone’s weak and girls are weaker than boys, what’s the point? Girls can’t carry as much, can’t fight as hard, run as fast and that made them a liability.

“Being in a crew was the only way to survive out there. If you belonged to someone they’d give you food, someplace out of the weather to sleep. So long as you pulled your weight, you got a cut. I tried to get in to a crew for months but no one would take a girl so…” Kathy shifted uncomfortably, dropping her gaze to the floor and all too aware of Tony’s watching her every movement, analysing, deciding, _judging._ “I started on my own. Eat to live, steal to eat and all that jazz. I racked up a bit of a reputation for being able to get into harder places without being caught. Taught myself how to pick locks, disable security systems and sneaking came pretty easily when you’re a teenage girl trying to avoid the creeps that skulk around the city at night.” She smiled heavily, the weight of the memory dragging the corners of it down.

“I finally got accepted into a crew. They called themselves the ‘Twilighters’.” Kathy couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out of her. “I heard they changed their names when those crappy books came out.”

“I only read them for the sex scenes, I swear,” Tony promised, hands up in the universal symbol for ‘nope, not me, totally innocent, not suspicious at all’. Kathy smiled properly this time, shaking her head disbelievingly.

“It was appropriate though. They went out around closing time, just when the sun was setting, and sneak into shops. The boys would hide until everyone left and locked up then send me out to shut down all the cameras and alarms. We’d raid the place and bail, no fingerprints, no footage, no evidence. The runs were pretty easy it was just…” Kathy had to close her eyes for a second, just long enough to get a handle on the emotions sitting in her throat.

“When you fought that hard to get to a place where you thought you could survive, where there was enough food, blankets when it got cold and company that wouldn’t try anything while you slept because they need you as much as you need them, you don’t stop fighting; you make yourself fight harder to prove that you belong there, that you deserve what you’re given. I kept trying to make them see that I was worth letting in; I kept practicing, learnt how to break into new systems, set up bank frauds, anything but sitting still so now I can’t… I just can’t do nothing. I need to pull my own weight.”

Throughout her speech Tony had sat and listened, no interruptions, no cutting in, no expression on his face. He just kept watching her, watching the play of emotions over her face. Kathy wondered what he thought of her now, knowing what she’d done. She just hoped he’d keep letting her stay here and help with Steve.

It must have been over a minute and Tony still hadn’t stopped staring. Kathy looked down at her feet.

“You’ve got two questions left.” Tony leaned back and pursed his lips. He nods slowly.

“You’re the Matron, aren’t you?” Kathy didn’t answer, just turned to look at him out of the corner of her eye, assessing. Tony smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

“One more question.”

“Well, we’re all going up to see Steve. We found a new friend who decided to come home to play and he was wondering where the Cap had got off too.” He pushed himself out of his chair and was halfway to the door before he turned back to look at her. “You coming?”

 

**~AVENGERS~**

The team were gathered in Steve’s superheated hospital room, all of them washed and changed into civilian clothes, wounds tended to (Tony could see Bruce glaring at the brace Natasha had taken for her wrist instead of the plaster) and waiting for Peter. He had asked if he could go take a shower too and, once Tony had told Jarvis to direct Peter to the infirmary when he was done, they had all come. Tony had ventured in with Kathy in tow sometime after to the teams curious glances. Tony shook his head and they all let it alone.

A quick look around the room confirmed what Tony had already suspected; Clint had disappeared again. Tony frowned. He hadn’t even had the chance to ask him where he’d been the last few days. Clint had randomly appeared in time to fight Jormungandr and nobody would have known until arrows started flying if it weren’t for the suit picking him up hiding on that rooftop. Tony had jumped onto Clint’s comm link and said, “Nice of you to show up, feathers,” and Clint had replied, “Up yours, bolts for brains,” and then Thor had spotted Loki and everything went downhill from there.

And now he was gone again. Tony couldn’t help wondering where he’d been running off to.

The door pushed open and Peter walked in, the Spiderman suit gone in favour of some black skinny jeans, a V-neck tee-shirt, and a hooded jacket. The first thing Tony noticed, however, was the black kitten sitting attentively on Peter’s shoulder, blue eyes narrowed suspiciously as it looked around the room, tail swishing ominously across its perch’s back.

“How the hell did that get in my tower?” Tony blurted, an accusing finger pointed at the ball of fluff. Peter smiled slightly, reaching up to scratch between the cat’s ears.

“He has a habit of finding me wherever I go. He was waiting on the bed in that guest room you sent me to.”

“Jarvis?” Tony asked, still scowling at the offending animal.

 _“However he got in, Sir, I have no record of any breach in security,”_ the AI replied primly. Tony huffed, making a mental note to look through Jarvis’ coding because he was just getting too sassy.

Peter’s eyes were fixed on the bed where Captain America lay and the woman standing next to him with a hand on his arm as he asked, “What happened?” Tony opened his mouth to say ‘evil wizard/Norse god/alien’ when Kathy cut in front of him.

“You can come closer, he won’t bite.” She smiled at him and Peter gulped quietly before taking a spot on the other side of Cap’s bed. Tony watched curiously, not so much Peter (he may be a superhero but he was still a teenage boy in front of a pretty girl. It was a train wreck Tony had seen one too many times, thank you) but the cat. It was watching Steve, the narrow-eyed scepticism replaced by curiosity and not a small amount of disgust. Tony never knew cats could be so expressive but this one was certainly managing it.

“He got cursed,” Kathy starts to explain. Peter looks interested. The kitten looks downright enthralled, its eyes still on Steve but its ears turned to Kathy. “He’s living his nightmare and we don’t know how to wake him up.”

“Did you try a bucket of cold water?” Peter jokes. Kathy just grabs his hand and pushes it against Steve’s skin. A shiver rips down his spin and he yanks it away.

“I don’t think more cold would help.”

Peter opens his mouth and Tony _swears_ he’s about to say ‘warm water, then’ when Kit jumps down onto Steve’s chest and starts walking up to his face. Peter starts to apologise and reaches for the kitten.

“No!” Thor booms, jumping forward and grabbing Peter’s wrist. “See what he does,” Thor explained to the eyes now watching him. The cat looked to Thor and bowed its head. Thor returned the motion, releasing Peter’s arm, and Tony _really_ started to question the people he hung out with.

Kit walked until he had his front paws settled on Steve’s chin, dipping his head and sniffing. He scrunched his nose in disgust, meowing quietly to himself. Peter looked to Tony helplessly. Tony shrugged, just as confused as him, and behind him Natasha and Bruce mimicked the gesture.

The kitten stepped up, placing one of its paws on Steve’s forehead and Tony’s eyes widened, reminded of the same stance Thor had taken when looking for the resonance to track Loki. The cat breathed deep and the hair on Tony’s arms stood on end. The room buzzed with power and all of it was coming from the tiny creature sitting on the Captain’s chest. The energy spiked and Tony felt the arc reactor sputter once before kicking back in and Tony thinks he should be concerned about that but he’s a little preoccupied because _Steve’s eyes are open._

He gasped and bolted upright. Kit fell limp, dropping down but Steve caught him. He stared, confused, at the ball of black fluff in his huge hands.

“Steve…?” Kathy whispered. He turned to her.

“Kathy? What-“ His question cut off when she threw her arms around him, burying her face into his neck. His face flooded with panic for a moment and he looked around at the awestruck faces of his teammates, finding no help from them. He shifted the cat into one hand and wrapped his arm around her. “Kathy, it’s okay. Everything’s fine, I’m fine. I promise.” Just like that, Kathy was up and punching him. Tony winced in sympathy.

“You _promise?_ Steven Grant Rogers, if you ever do that again, I am _never_ making you anymore strawberry cheesecake and don’t pretend you don’t like them I know _they’re. Your. Favourite!”_ Each of the last words was punctuated by a fist in the shoulder. Steve looked fond, a little frightened and a lot confused. He looked to Tony questioningly and Tony wondered when he became first port of call for information but instead just smirked and mouthed ‘ _Grant?_ ’. Steve blushed lightly and looked down.

He saw the fur and asked, “Um, why is there a cat?” Peter sprung forward like he’d been waiting for an opportunity and seized Kit, cradling him close and checking his breathing with a furrow of worry between his brows. His shoulders only relaxed marginally when he found it.

“So, turns out your cat is magic,” Tony put in helpfully. Natasha slaps him across the back of the head and Bruce stomped on his foot. “Ow. What? I was just stating a- Hey, what’s up with Point Break?” Tony belatedly realised that Thor has just been standing at the foot of Steve’s bed, his mouth a little agape and eyes watching the kitten.

“Thor?” Steve tried. “Are you ok-“ _BANG!_ The doors to the infirmary crashed open, guards poured, four of them surrounding Peter. He quickly dumped the unconscious Kit into the hood of his jumped just as his hands were wrenched behind his back, cuffs slapped around his wrists and hands fisted in his hair and shirt to hold him still.

“Hey!” Tony yelled. “What the hell is this?! Let him go! He’s-“

“-Spiderman,” a commanding voice that they all recognized too well called. All their objections cut off, Natasha snapped to attention as Nick Fury walked into the room, his one eye trailing along the Avengers; Natasha’s impassive expression but the fire in her eyes, Bruce’s green-tinged features, Tony’s outright rage, Thor’s godly menace and Steve, still on the bed with a hand around Kathy’s waist, looking confused but spiteful at the sight of a teenager in handcuffs.

“So nice to see you all again,” Fury continued, ignoring the hate-filled looks that could have set the Tower on fire with the force of their scorn. “Considering I haven’t heard from any of you in _two weeks.”_ Fury turned to Steve. “Captain, good to see you’re back with us.” Steve flinched, knowing he could be charged with desertion (even if the punishment wasn’t as harsh as in the war, a dishonourable discharge was still terrible to consider).

“What can we do for you, Nicky poo?” Tony singsonged, his biggest shit-eating paparazzi smile plastered on his face. “Come to share in the congratulatory dinner since we just saved New York again? Kathy’s a great cook.” The use of her proper name drove home the point to Kathy just how serious this was. She added her prize ‘no, these aren’t the iPhones stolen from that shop a few blocks back , I just bought them on ebay, yes, they’re all for me’ smile to Tony’s.

“Yes, I made a fresh GTFO pie. You should try some; it’s delicious,” she invited.

“And what might be in this pie?” Fury tested, eyebrow raised sceptically.

“Granola, tapioca, fudge and orange slices. It’s my mother’s recipe.”

“Sounds delightful,” Fury drawled. “Unfortunately, I have some business to discuss with our ‘friendly neighbourhood Spiderman’.” Fury gestured to his men and they started dragging Peter out the door, the entire team yelling loudly for them to stop, unable to do anything.

“You promised,” Peter calls back. “You _promised!”_ Tony growled and launched himself at Fury. Natasha and Bruce grabbed him, wrestling him away from Fury who watched on with an amused smirk.

“Fucking let me _go!_ ” Tony screamed, thrashing against their hold.

“Tony, you can’t help him if you’re in a cell too!” Bruce reasoned. The fight just left him. He closed his eyes, took a steadying breath and hauled himself to his feet. Bruce and Natasha kept hold of his arms, Steve and Kathy watched on in horror, Thor stood with Mjolnir hefted and murder in his eyes.

“We’ll get him back,” Tony promised, his voice solid with certainty. “No matter what it takes, we’ll get him back.”

“I don’t doubt you’ll try,” Fury returned. “But before you do that, you might want to talk to our informant.” Fury turned on his heel, gesturing behind him, and he and his flood of agents left the room.

Standing silently in the doorway, head hanging, was Clint Barton.


	13. I Got Three Problems and All of Them Are Loki Laufeyson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets jailed (I'm sorry, was that Sharon Carter? YES IT WAS!!!), Kathy and Jarvis are evil, evil accomplices, Steve is generally confused about everything and Clint's an idiot.
> 
> Oh, and the cat is actually Loki. Go figure, right?

Before Peter agreed to meet with the Avengers, he hadn’t really been a big fan of government shadow agencies, especially ones that seemed to play god (or with gods) about the survival of New York. Now he was at the hands of them and he was finding he liked them even less. Peter wouldn’t call himself incompetent but faced with the brutal efficiency of the SHIELD agents handling him, his chances of escape were growing slimmer and slimmer.

The cuffs they’d slapped on him were made of some kind of metal he’d never seen before, the weak chain links of police standard replaced with thick bands, nearly three inches wide and welded together. They were more like shackles than anything else. Two men walked on either side of him, the inner pair with hands wrapped tightly around his forearms, the outer with Tasers and traq guns pointed his way. The man with the eye patch walked in front of their little parade ( _Fury,_ Peter thinks that was what Stark called him) with long confident strides that made him think he was probably in charge. Peter was never one for maturity in the face of stress; he glared mercilessly at Fury’s back and was just waiting for him to turn around so that he could stick his tongue out.

The Goon Squad had dragged him from the room and down to the garage before shoving him into the back of a highly suspicious nondescript black van. At that point, Peter was pretty sure the only reason there wasn’t some kind of sack on his head was because the windows had been blacked out.

The ride didn’t take very long or maybe Peter hadn’t noticed; he’d been too busy cursing the Avengers. They’d promised him that he wouldn’t have to commit to anything, that they’d leave him alone if he helped them with this whole Ragnarok thing. But here he was, prisoner of the government, less rights than a cabbage, and all because his aunt had taught him to give people a chance. He should never have trusted them. They were the Big Six; they got what they wanted and damn the rest.

He was so _stupid!_ What the hell had he been thinking? When he got out of here ( _If,_ his traitorous brain supplied, _if he got out of here_ ) he was going to find Gwen and they were going to get in a car and leave New York, get away from the heroes and the agencies, just be teenagers for a while, travel, see the country. They could just be together and forget.

_But what about Aunt May? What about Mrs Stacy? What would they think?_ Times like these, Peter cursed his ability to think ahead, cursed Uncle Ben for teaching him that lesson, cursed everything. He couldn’t just leave them alone; Aunt May wouldn’t cope without Peter, not after what happened to Uncle Ben, and Mrs Stacy would be crushed if Gwen left.

And then there were the people, the ones the _Avengers_ didn’t care about, the ones _he_ saved. He couldn’t abandon them either. He’d have to stay in New York.

Peter gave a resigned sigh as they’d hauled him from the back of the van. He hadn’t recognised the building but they hadn’t driven long enough to have left the city so that was a plus. They pulled him around to a small shack and wrenched the door open. _Great,_ he thought. _Torture in the back alley before eternal imprisonment. It must be my lucky day…_ Peter stumbled in when they shoved him, moving back into the far corner and away from them. Agent One flipped a switch and the room lit up and oh, hey, secret elevator. Peter wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the torture.

When they hit the bottom, another two agents were waiting, one taking up a position by Fury and the other behind Peter as they marched him through the corridors. Agents ducked to the side in the path of their precession, snapping to attention at the sight of the tall, commanding man. Peter would have laughed but he really wasn’t in the mood by then.

He took the time to try and memorise the layout of the monotonous, repetitively grey cement corridors that seemed to be stock-standard ‘hiding-from-the-cops/villains/superheroes-who-meddle-too-much’ fare. Trying to plot by sight obviously wasn’t going to help; there weren’t even numbers on the doors. Hey. Numbers. Peter was a smart guy, he could do numbers.

214 feet straight. Turn right.

38 feet. Turn left.

352 feet aaaand…. Menacing steel door. Fantastic.

“This my new room, dad?” Peter snarked. He really needed a new defence mechanism. Antagonising the Dread Pirate is a really bad idea…

“Not quite, son,” Fury smirked. Well… He said smirked; it was really more of sneer, lips pulling back over teeth and only the slightest upward curl at the corners. Fury punched in a code at the keypad. Old fashioned, Peter noticed, but he didn’t doubt it was made to look that way. Lights flickered on in the darkness beyond the door, illuminating a sharp decent into more inky black below. Peter had to fight down the shiver he could feel sitting at the base of his spine.

_Chances of escape have just dropped below 10%._

The agents shoved him forward down the staircase. Peter stumbled down the steep decline, not having his hands to balance. He might have been playing it up a bit (the Bite had given him pretty sweet coordination) but the less they knew about his powers the better; he was perfectly happy to let them think he was just a kid with some nifty gadgets.

Eventually they levelled out into a small room with another, much more complicated looking door. Fury stepped forward and swiped his card, punched in his code _and_ leaned forward for a retinal scan. Seriously? Talk about paranoid. Not that it mattered much; Peter could easily bypassed the card reader and he already had the code memorised ( _747283, his code spells ‘pirate’, oh my_ god). The retinal scanner would be a more of a challenge but he could probably make it work if he accessed the base’s databanks and opened their personnel files to create a loop of the original scan into the-

Agent Two shoved him through the door and Peter staggered on his way, his train of thought rather successfully derailed. These corridors were the same as the ones upstairs. Someone really need to introduce these guys to an interior designer. Peter puffed his cheeks in annoyance and started counting again.

The percentage in Peter’s head just kept going _down,_ the more corners they turned, the further they walked, the more _energy field bared cells_ they passed. Peter started paying attention to the cells, noticing the faces of occupants that he recognized. Faces he’d seen on the news wanted for robbery, kidnapping, _murder._

His day just kept getting better and better.

“Hey, no, why am I here with these guys? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Peter yelled. He started struggling against his captors, only using a fraction of his strength to pull at the arms holding him.

_Make them think you’re scared. You’re just a kid, after all, they might go easy on you that way._

_Yeah, right…._

“You are here,” Fury menacing, his one eye narrowed over his shoulder at the panicking teen, “because you are dangerous and you will stay here until SHIELD decides what to do with you.”

They stopped in front of a cell. Peter turned to look at it (ordinary bars, thank _Christ)_ and pretended to struggle harder letting a little of the fear he felt creep into his expression. The corner of Fury’s lip turned up and Peter wasn’t sure whether it was smug or knowing but either way the Director gestured to his cronies who started patting Peter down. They took his phone, his wallet, his iPod, his wrist blasters (predictable) but skimmed over the pen in his pocket, the Stark Tower visitors badge clipped to the front of his jacket, the pack of gum and they didn’t even look in the hood of his jacket even though he was sure they’d seen him drop Kit in there when they charged into the medical wing.

What the hell? Were these guys the most incompetent jail wardens ever or was there something else going on here?

Fury stepped forward, swiped his card and punched in his code again (Seriously, _pirate._ Someone _must_ have lost their job over that). Agent One undid the shackles and shoved. Peter stumbled in, ever the bumbling teen, and tripped over his own feet onto the floor. The door slammed shut behind him and the electronic lock engaged with a click.

“Please don’t cause any trouble, kid,” Agent Three requested and she sounded almost kind despite her viciously neat blonde ponytail and sharp blue eyes. Peter’s gaze flickered over her, noting the white ‘13’ stitched onto the sleeve of her uniform just below the SHIELD badge.

“But I didn’t do anything!” he tried (he was nothing if not stubborn). She raised sceptical eyebrows at him but the corner of her mouth turned up in amusement.

“Then keep doing nothing,” she said simply, turning and following the rest of Peter’s escorts back down the hallway. _It was worth a shot, at least,_ he thought glumly.

Peter reached behind him and pulled Kit from his hood. The kitten was still unconscious but his breathing was steady. He clutched him to his chest and swallowed the lump in his throat. The feline had grown on him and he hated the thought that he might not wake up. And how had this happened, anyway? What had Kit done to wake up the Captain?

_‘Turns out my cat is magic’, huh?_

Peter shook his head. First things first, he had to get them out of this SHIELD compound. He resituated Kit and stood up, pulling the visitors card and the pen from his pocket. Peter used the pen to prise open the back of the card reader and set about using the pin from the visitors card to strip down the cable and rewire it to read the magnetic strip from the Stark Tower card. It took him almost half an hour of tedious work to connect all the cables and by then Peter was bouncing on the balls of his feet, anxiety keeping him from being still.

“Here goes nothing,” Peter mumbled. He swiped and prayed for a miracle.

 

**~AVENGERS~**

The medical bay had erupted into utter pandemonium the second Fury was out of sight. Tony was screaming profanities at Clint, Bruce was trying to hold him back, Clint was yelling that he could explain, Natasha was loudly implying that if the explanation wasn’t good enough she would quite readily break his bow hand and Thor was declaring that ‘THE PUNY MORTAL HATH BROKEN THE TRUST OF THE SPIDER CHILD BUT THERE IS SOMETHING OF MUCH GREATER IMPORT THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED’. Steve was just watching on, confused and bewildered by what had gotten into his team and who their recent guest had been, still sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, blankets wrapped tight around his shoulders.

Kathy shook her head in amazement at the people in front of her. These were the Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Champions of the Human Race, and they were squabbling like three year olds in the sandbox. She couldn’t believe this had become her life…

“Jarvis, if you please?” she asked the air.

_“Of course, Miss. You may want to cover your ears.”_

Kathy nudged Steve and brought her hands up to cover her ears when he tore his eyes away from the carnage. He hesitantly copied. As soon as their ears were safe, some hellish combination of dying cats, a freight train, an air horn and a car alarm chorused through the room. Everyone’s mouths snapped shut on a yelp and hands clapped over ears. Just as abruptly as it began it cut off.

“Alright!” Kathy yelled at the group of wincing, head-clutching superheroes. “Now that I have your attention, you all need to _shut up_ and _listen._ Tony, Natasha, you two are yelling for an explanation, Clint’s trying to give one but you won’t be _quiet_ long enough for him to get one out, Thor seems to think there’s something more important but we’ll come back to you, gorgeous, because right now, what I want to know is how, when a kid, _a kid,_ that sweet comes to you and says he’ll help you stop the apocalypse on the promise that you won’t sell him out to SHIELD, the questionably moral government organisation that’s been hunting him down, you thought it was a good idea to give Fury everything you had on him, Clint? How in the hell did you think that was the right thing to do?”

Every eye in the room turned on the archer. He was still in the doorway, shifting awkwardly and looking like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his limbs. He was staring resolutely at the tiles, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

“I didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” he mumbled, lifting his chin and shifting his gaze to the back wall. He looked for all the world like he was facing court martial. “I knew I’d get thrown out if I didn’t.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tony demanded, folding his arms across his chest and holding his scowl at Clint. He just looked at Tony, ‘are you seriously this stupid?’ written all over his face.

“SHIELD has something on everybody; it’s one of the ways they keep control,” he explained. “Do you really think SHIELD couldn’t have stopped the Avengers splitting from them if they wanted to?”

“We split from SHIELD?” Steve asked quietly. Kathy shrugged. Nothing about it had made it to the news.

“What could they possibly have on you to make you turn over Peter? We all saw the way you watched the surveillance feeds,” Bruce asked, no anger or judgement in his voice, just curiosity. Kathy wasn’t sure which would have made her feel worse; them being entirely and justifiably angry or completely and clinically subjective.

“You guys have to understand; SHIELD is all I have left. They dragged me up from the hole I’d dug myself. Without them, where would I go? Fury can kick me out at any second and I just- I wouldn’t have anything anymore…” His eyes fell back to the floor, resignation in the slump of his shoulders and the downward curve of his neck.

Nobody said anything, just stared at the archer, watched the tension slowly seep into his spine as he waited for them to pass judgement. \

“Fucking idiot.”

“Tony!”

“What, Steve? It’s true! We split from SHIELD, even if Peg-Leg No-Beard kicked you out of the Spy Games, you’re still an Avenger and you fucking _live here,_ it’s not like _I’m_ going to kick you out, this is your home, you stupid jerk.”

Clint blinked at him, mouth opening and closing around words that he couldn’t find. They were all watching him, fond exasperation shining through the anger from before.

“I… Home?” he asked quietly. Tony just shook his head and clapped him on the shoulder.

“I’ll let you off this time because you are an affection deprived and emotionally stunted orphan,” he warned. “but next time, I will break your bow in half and program Jarvis to play the Hunger Games theme every time you walk into a room, it will bring new meaning to the phrase ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, see if I don’t!”

“As diabetes inducing as this is, we still have three problems,” Kathy interrupted. “1) That apocalypse is still coming; 2) Itsy Bitsy _is_ still up the water spout and 3) whatever the hell Thor was yelling about.”

“Indeed, my friends!” the god boomed, a smile splitting his face so wide it was a wonder he had any cheeks left at all. “I believe I have located my brother!” The entire room perked at the news.

“Where? How?” Bruce asked, eyes wide and eager. The sooner they found Loki, the sooner they could stop him from trying to incite Ragnarok.

“When the Spider Child’s feline companion broke the good Captain’s curse, Loki’s resonance filled this room.” Six pairs of glazed eyes stared at the thunder god uncomprehendingly.

“No…” Tony said slowly, first to snap out of it. “You’re not saying…”

“I’m afraid my brother has been transformed into a kitten.”

Not even Thor’s puppy dog eyes or Steve’s Eyebrows of Imminent Disapproval™ could have quelled the raucous laughter.


End file.
